If “The Secret Sharer” symbolizes, even obscurely, the birth of the New Man, _The Four Men_ is the last picture of the Older Man—the Man of Christendom. Belloc’s position takes on an added interest when it is seen to be the exact opposite, point for point, of man’s situation in the world as conceived by contemporary literature and philosophy. Myself is rendered one and whole in becoming these Others, without which Myself cannot be Myself. In becoming the Poet,[11] Myself enters into a world of beauty and of all those visions that have ever stabbed at the heart of man calling him to a world only vaguely seen. In becoming the Sailor, Myself takes his stand within the physical universe of things: the universe of being. In becoming the Grizzlebeard, Myself conquers the past, and transcending the world of space, he enters into the dimension of time wherein he is one with his fathers and the ages. Thus Belloc’s _Four Men_ might be called Thomistic; not in the sense that Belloc is a professional philosopher, but simply that his vision is oriented in the direction Aquinas’ was, in the direction any Christian’s is—toward reality. The revelation of the self to itself is had in knowing things other than the self. This is indeed the very definition of knowledge as it has been understood in the Western World: man knows himself in knowing other things, and to know is to be, or to come to be, the Other as Other. I first know what is not myself, and in the not-myself I am revealed to myself. I conquer the distance between myself and the Other by feeding on all things and values, for being is the proper nourishment of man. Unless I forget myself in the Other, I shall never be Myself. He who would gain his soul must lose it. _The Four Men_ represent the natural and classical foundation of Belloc’s personal integration. He makes his own these archetypes of Western Men of that Western culture in which human nature most fully came into its own. The Poet, the Sailor, and the Man of Wisdom are the classical unities that underlie traditional Christian values. Belloc’s Poet is as old as the Republic: he is less a man of art than a man of dreams; Belloc’s Sailor looks to Homer; and Grizzlebeard, while English to the core, echoes the Augustan strains of Virgil. Myself is one with himself in these companions. But all the comradery, the good fellowship, the hearty wisdom, and the love exchanged between friends is threatened by what one might call the possibility of classical or human alienation. Man is not his own enemy in Belloc’s farrago; Death is the enemy. The campfire blazes in the woods and the inn is full of decency and laughter, but the universe in the background breathes mutability and is marked for the harvest. The seasons rise and fall. Generation issues into corruption and the rich leaves of autumn prefigure the coming of death. Even the County of Sussex, marked for eventual dereliction, will yet outlive man.