evolution and had noticed the careful attention paid by Mr. Belloc to
military matters in various books could scarcely have been prepared for
such an avalanche of highly-specialized knowledge. For we are all prone
to the mistake of confusing a man with his books.

With regard to some writers this error does not necessarily lead to very
evil results. There are some writers who express themselves as much in
one part of their work as in another. Take Mr. H. G. Wells as an
example. His writings, it is true, are varied in character, ranging from
phantasy to philosophy, from sociology to science. But through all his
writings there runs a thin thread which binds all of them together.
That thread is the personality of Mr. Wells finding expression. In such
a case as this personal knowledge of the man merely amplifies the idea
of him which we have been able to gather from his work.

But with Mr. Belloc the case is different. Can any full idea of Mr.
Belloc, the man, be formed by reading his books? It is to be doubted.
Were you to consult a reader of Mr. Wells' phantasies and a reader of
Mr. Wells' sociological novels with regard to the ideas of the writer
they had gleaned, you would find that the mental pictures they had
painted had many characteristics in common. Were you to make the same
experiment with a reader of Mr. Belloc's political writings and, say, a
subscriber to the _Morning Post_, who knew him by his essays alone, the
pictures would be entirely dissimilar.

And if it be admitted that this is so, the question arises: why is it
so? If, in the case of Mr. Wells, the writer is dimly visible through
the veil of his writings, why does Mr. Belloc remain hidden? This must
not be understood as meaning that Mr. Belloc's personality is not
expressed in his writings. To offer such an explanation would be merely
absurd. But it means that his personality is not expressed, as is that
of Mr. Wells, completely though cloudily, in any one book. To offer as a
reason that the one is subjective, the other objective is nonsense.
Every writer is necessarily both.

There are two answers to the question: the one partially, the other
wholly true. To attempt to find the answer which is wholly true is one
of the reasons why this book was written.

For the moment, however, let us be content with the answer which is
partially true. Let us accept the charge of a contemporary and friend of
Mr. Belloc who has long loomed large in the world of li