170 NATURES IDEAL 



can see what things really are. If we put ourselves 

 right up against a picture in the National Gallery 

 we cannot possibly see its beauty — see what the 

 picture really is. No man is a hero to his own valet. 

 And that is not because a man is not a hero, but 

 because the valet is too close to see the real man. 

 Cecil Rhodes at close quarters was peevish, irritable, 

 and like a big spoilt child. Now at a distance we 

 know him, with all his faults, to have been a great- 

 souled man. Social reformers near at hand are 

 often intolerable bores and religious fanatics 

 frequently a pestilential nuisance. We have to get 

 well away from a man to see him as he really is. 

 And so it is with mankind as a whole. 



So I become more and more certain that my 

 vision was true. And the experience of the Great 

 War strengthens my conviction. As we recede from 

 it, what will stand out, we may be sure, are not the 

 crimes and cruelties that have been committed and 

 the suffering that has been caused, but the astound- 

 ing heroism which was displayed, the self-sacrifice, 

 the devotion and love of country that were shown — 

 heroism and devotion such as have never before in 

 the world's history been approached, and which was 

 manifested by common everyday men and women 

 in every branch of life and in every country. 



The conclusion I reach from this experience is 

 that I was, at the moment I had it, intimately in 

 touch with the true Heart of Nature. In my ex- 

 ceptionally receptive mood I was directly experienc- 

 ing the genius of Nature in the very act of inspiring 

 and vitalising the whole. I was seeing the Divinity 



