r instance, or a desire for light on some
obscure point in one of his earlier works. Heroes are very human, most
of them; very easily touched by praise. Some of them, however, are
bad at answering letters. The worshipper must not scruple to write
repeatedly, if need be. Sooner or later he will be summoned to the
presence. This, perhaps, will entail a railway journey. Heroes tend
to live a little way out of London. So much the better. The adventure
should smack of pilgrimage. Consider also that a house in a London
street cannot seem so signally its owner's own as can a house in a
village or among fields. The one kind contains him, the other enshrines
him, breathes of him. The sight of it, after a walk (there should be a
longish walk) from the railway station, strikes great initial chords in
the worshipper; and the smaller the house, the greater the chords. The
worshipper pauses at the gate of the little front-garden, and when he
writes his autobiography those chords will be reverberating yet. 'Here
it was that the greatest of modern spirits had lived and wrought.
Here in the fullness of years he abode. With I know not what tumult
of thoughts I passed up the path and rang the bell. A bright-faced
parlourmaid showed me into a room on the ground-floor, and said she
would tell the master I was here. It was a wonderfully simple room; and
something, perhaps the writing-table, told me it was his work-room,
the very room from which, in the teeth of the world's neglect and
misunderstanding, he had cast his spell over the minds of all thinking
men and women. When I had waited a few minutes, the door opened and'
after that the deluge of what was felt when the very eminent man came
in.

Came in, mark you. That is a vastly important point. Had the very
eminent man been there at the outset, the worshipper's first sight of
him would have been a very great moment, certainly; but not nearly
so great as in fact it was. Very eminent men should always, on these
occasions, come in. That is the point I ask them to remember.

Honourably concerned with large high issues, they are not students
of personal effect. I must therefore explain to them why it is more
impressive to come into a room than to be found there.

Let those of them who have been playgoers cast their minds back to
their experience of theatres. Can they recall a single play in which the
principal actor was 'discovered' sitting or standing on the stage when
the curtain rose? No