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 literature:-- "Mr. Hilaire Belloc Is a case for legislation _ad hoc_: He seems to think nobody minds His books being all of different kinds." That is the charge. A plea of guilty and, at the same time, a defence based on justification might be found in Mr. Belloc's words (which occur at the end of one of his essays): "What a wonderful world it is and how many things there are in it!" Thus might we bolster up the answer which is but partially true until it seemed wholly true. We might make Mr. Belloc's diversity his disguise. We might hoodwink the public. But that is a dangerous game. The public has a habit of finding out. Mr. Belloc himself is always on the watch to expose impostors (especially the Parliamentary kind) and he has described most graphically the fate awaiting them:-- "For every time She shouted 'Fire!' The people answered 'Little Liar!'" So let us view the matter squarely. The aim of this little study, if so ambitious a phrase may be used of what is purely a piece of self-indulgence, is to present the public with as complete an idea as possible of Mr. Belloc and his work. Up to the present, the relations between Mr. Belloc and the public have been, to say the least, peculiar. If we regard the public as a mass subject to attack and the author as the attacker, we may say that, whereas most contemporary authors have attacked at one spot only and used their gradually increasing strength to drive on straight into the heart of the mass, Mr. Belloc has attacked at various points. It is obvious, however, that these various separate attacks, if they are to achieve their object, which is the subjection of the mass, must be thoroughly co-ordinated and have large reserve forces upon which to draw.