You see, he knew so much that no opinion and no theory could cover what he knew. Doubtless, had he liked he might have denied what he knew and rushed into the fray and been as clamorous and vulgar as anybody. This did not tempt the solitary man, nourishing himself on the indwelling spirit of brooding truth. When I think of him and others of his sort I have known in Ireland, Synge, for one, I am reminded of the great Russian writers. In old age Tolstoi made strange incursions into the world of opinion, and found what he wanted in the New Testament, and Dostoïevsky, if I remember rightly, fell back on the Orthodox Greek Church. For this kind of futile industry neither had any aptitude. I suppose their sensitive minds heard the call of the spirit of the age. Had George taken to opinions he would have been just as credulous and unskilful as these mighty men. Living all his days in the West of Ireland, far from books and from leaders of thought, the spirit of the age did not come his way. And how does Shakespeare figure in the world of opinion? Did he ever take lance in hand to fight on behalf of any of the opinions of his day? I fancy that like Hamlet he had too much mind to make up! Is it not a fact attested over and over again that poets always know too much to give entertainment to any system of opinion, however loudly it clamours for admittance. These men have to live in the hermitage of their own minds. The poet always is solitary and never more solitary than when most sociable, and it is because it lacks the fervour of heated opinion that good literature avoids emphasis. I am perfectly alive to the value of the fighting man when in the ranks and under strong discipline, or self-appointed, as he often is, to subordinate tasks, as when an artist produces the hideous to excite the crowd and to interest them in some good cause that without the stimulus of hatred would not appeal to them. Hatred so difficult to a full mind is so easy to an empty one. I don't believe there was ever a great man that was a fighting man--not Cromwell, he lived surrounded by fighting men but was himself conciliatory to a degree; not Napoleon, of him a contemporary wrote, 'A larger soul hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay:' his gift was that of vision and purpose and an amazing talent for organisation. Had the French demanded peace his genius would have devoted itself to organising 'the victories of peace.' Luther struggled hard to remain within the Church, it was the fighting men inside its fold who drove him out. These great men had purposes and had visions and were never fighting men, though these were the tools with which they worked.