For two years he turned in prison as in a cage. Then he began to live. His mind expanded beyond the limits of body and his discomfort and of himself. Some sort of expression must be found for his mind's activity, and his means of expression were limited. As health came to him while he worked in his laboratory the proper expression for his mind's activity evolved itself. During the months of his retreat in Ireland, in his cabin as he made his way across the silent sea, he had read deeply and thought deeply about the past; in his active life at the Court and elsewhere he had known men who made history, and he had taken part in events which were history. He had seen and conversed with men whom civilization had not touched, he had known men of every country whom civilization had shaped to its culminating point; and now as he lived in the Tower from which he could see the ships sailing down the Thames to the unknown lands, from which he could look down upon the busy men of London, slowly there formed itself in his great mind a project. The project was to write the history of the whole great world, from which he was now cut off, from its very beginnings down to the days in which he was living, aloof from the life around. He determined to write the History of the World. That was the proper expression for his great mind's activity. He felt unconsciously that in so doing he could express himself. He set to work. He felt he had the grip of everything from the creation of the world to his own birth and tempestuous life of more than fifty years. We have burrowed more deeply into the mystery of things than the great Elizabethan, as sublimely unaware of his ignorance, as we are of ours; he had complete confidence in his knowledge. We hesitate, we feel always on the brink of some great discovery, to which acquired knowledge is leading us. He explored continents, feeling limitless possibilities of the earth; and doubted not about the spiritual world. We know the limits of the earth; and explore these spiritual worlds, the mystery of existence. Therein lies the difference between two ages; therein without a boast, lies the progress, even, which has happened in the last three hundred years of man's existence. The adventurous whom the Unknown attracts are not drawn to explore the earth's surface; they turn towards the mystery of their own souls from which comes much profitless self-searching and a little eternal gain; they turn towards the mysteries of life and death and birth; they try to unravel the skein which men were then living tempestuously to entangle.