It had long been a dream of mountaineers. Lord Curzon, when Viceroy of India, had suggested the exploration of Everest to the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club. But there were political difficulties connected with the journey through Tibet or Nepal, and even a reconnaissance of the mountain proved impossible. Cecil Rawling (who fell at the Third Battle of Ypres as a Brigadier-General with the 21st Division), during his journey in 1904 to the head waters of the Brahmaputra, saw for the first time, from a distance of sixty miles, the north side of Everest, and believed that it might be climbed. I well remember how in the year before the war he and I planned an expedition which was to cover two seasons, and explore that northern side. In March, 1919, Captain Noel urged the Royal Geographical Society to undertake the work, and Sir Francis Younghusband, the President of the Society in the following year, in conjunction with the Alpine Club, entered into negotiations with the Government of India. Permission was obtained from the Tibetan authorities, and in January 1921 a Joint Committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club proceeded to organize an expedition.
There were many to ask what was the use of such an enterprise, which would be costly, difficult, and certainly dangerous. The answer is that it was no earthly use, and that in that lay its supreme merit. The war had called forth the finest qualities of human nature, and with the advent of peace there seemed a risk of the world slipping back into a dull materialism. Men had begun to ask of everything its cash value, and to cherish, as if it were a virtue, a narrow utilitarian commonsense. To embark upon something which had no material value was a vindication of the essential idealism of the human spirit. In Sir Francis Younghusband's words, "The sight of climbers struggling upwards to the supreme pinnacle would have taught men to lift their eyes to the hills--to raise them off the ground and divert them, if only for a moment, to something pure and lofty and satisfying to that inner craving for the worthiest which all men have hidden in their souls. And when they see men thrown back at first, but returning again and again to the assault, till, with faltering footsteps and gasping breaths, they at last reach the summit, they will thrill with pride. They will no longer be obsessed with the thought of what mites they are in comparison with the mountains--how insignificant they are beside their material surroundings. They will have a proper pride in themselves, and a well-grounded faith in the capacity of spirit to dominate material."