A Literary Reference: Goodbye To All That

The most honoured man there was Geoffrey Young, an Eton master, and the President of the Climbers' Club. His four closest friends had all been killed climbing; a comment on the extraordinary care which he always took himself. It appeared not merely in his preparartions for an ascent - the careful examination strand by strand of the Alpine rope, the attention to his boot-nails, and the balanced loading of his ruck-sack - but also in his caution on the rock-face. Before making any move he thought it out foot-by-foot, as though it were a chess problem.

Robert Graves, Goodbye To All That, Penguin, 2000, p. 49. (Original date of publication 1929.)


[Thanks to Martin]

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