I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.

The decline of geography in academia is easy to understand: we live in an age of ever-increasing specialization, and geography is a generalist's discipline. Imagine the poor geographer trying to explain to someone at a campus cocktail party (or even to an unsympathetic adminitrator) exactly what it is he or she studies. Geography is Greek for 'writing about the earth.' We study the Earth.Right, like geologists.Well, yes, but we're interested in the whole world, not just the rocky bits. Geographers also study oceans, lakes, the water cycle...So, it's like oceanography or hydrology.And the atmosphere.Meteorology, climatology...It's broader than just physical geography. We're also interested in how humans relate to their planet.How is that different from ecology or environmental science?Well, it encompasses them. Aspects of them. But we also study the social and economic and cultural and geopolitical sides of--Sociology, economics, cultural studies, poli sci.Some geographers specialize in different world regions.Ah, right, we have Asian and African and Latin American studies programs here. But I didn't know they were part of the geography department.They're not.(Long pause.)So, uh, what is it that do study then?

Everywhere's been where it is ever since it was first put there. It's called geography.

Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.

Dreams are our only geography— our native land.

War does one good— it teaches people geography.

Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides... I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.

The scientific world of the time was in the midst of a terrible ferment, with discoveries and realizations coming at an unseemly rate. To many in the ranks of the conservative and the devout, the new theories of geology and biology were delivering a series of hammer blows to mankind's self-regard. Geologists in particular seemed to have gone berserk, to have thrown off all sense of proper obeisance to their Maker... Mankind, it seemed, was now suddenly rather – dare one say it? – insignificant. He may not have been, as he had eternally supposed, specially created.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's Judgment Seat.

I remember as a child reading or hearing the words 'The Great Divide' and being stunned by the glorious sound, a proper sound for the granite backbone of a continent. I saw in my mind escarpments rising into the clouds, a kind of natural Great Wall of China.