Sir Ernest Shackleton -- the naked soul of man

1912 advertisement for willing men to join Shackleton's expedition to cross Antarctica on foot:

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

There were five thousand responses. He took the best twenty-seven.

As you probably know, the expedition lived up to his warning. Their ship got frozen in place just off the Antarctic coast and was later crushed by the ice. After an harrowing, two-year ordeal, all of the men returned safely.

Shackleton wrote in his diary:

"In memories we were rich. We haad pierced the veneer of outside things. We had suffered, starved and triumphed, grovelled down yet grasped at glory, grown bigger in the bigness of the whole. We had seen God in His splendours, heard the text that nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.