`The
rose of roses' loses more or less of its beauty in any vase, and
rather more than less there in a nosegay of ordinary little blossoms
(to which I rather rudely liken Mrs. T--'s other friends). The supreme
flower should be first seen growing from its own Sharonian soil.
The worshipper should have, therefore, a letter of introduction.
Failing that, he should write a letter introducing himself--a fervid,
an idolatrous letter, not without some excuse for the writing of it:
the hero's seventieth birthday, for 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.
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