are guides to conduct and inspirations to action: a
goal which is reached in the striving.

Most of us go about this world imagining ourselves to be not as we are,
but as we should like ourselves to be. No man who is not wholly
unimaginative can escape this form of self-consciousness. Certainly no
man who has in him anything of the artist can escape it: less still a
man who is so much of an artist as Mr. Belloc. It has been remarked of
Mr. Belloc time and again that he would make an extraordinarily fine
revolutionary leader, and it is interesting to find in Mr. Belloc's work
a description of one of the greatest revolutionary leaders which might
in many respects be a description of Mr. Belloc himself. We refer to Mr.
Belloc's description of the appearance and character of Danton. Though
it would be absurd to suggest that Mr. Belloc has deliberately modelled
his life on that of Danton, yet the resemblance between Mr. Belloc's own
personality and the personality (as Mr. Belloc describes it) of Danton
is so striking, that we cannot avoid quoting the passage at considerable
length. It is interesting, too, to recall that this monograph, which is
obviously based on very careful and deep research, was written by Mr.
Belloc shortly after he came down from Oxford, and was the first work of
importance he published. Mr. Belloc describes Danton thus:--

He was tall and stout, with the forward bearing of the orator, full
of gesture and of animation. He carried a round French head upon
the thick neck of energy. His face was generous, ugly, and
determined. With wide eyes and calm brows, he yet had the quick
glance which betrays the habit of appealing to an audience.... In
his dress he had something of the negligence which goes with
extreme vivacity and with a constant interest in things outside
oneself; but it was invariably that of his rank. Indeed, to the
minor conventions Danton always bowed, because he was a man, and
because he was eminently sane. More than did the run of men at that
time, he understood that you cut down no tree by lopping at the
leaves, nor break up a society by throwing away a wig. The decent
self-respect which goes with conscious power was never absent from
his costume, though it often left his language in moments of
crisis, or even of irritation. I will not insist too much upon his
great character of energy, because it has been so