eyes turned inwards, 'I have at last
seen the problem clearly, and seen it whole. It is largely because of
this that I have elected to seek the seclusion of another world. What
that world contains for me I know not, though so many public men have
tried to tell me; but it has never been my way to recoil from the
Unknown, and I am ready for my journey beyond the wide world's end.'

"I was greatly struck by the large-hearted way in which he spoke those
words, and I interrupted him to ask whether he did not think that there
was something fundamental in the British character which would leap as
one man at such an act of daring sacrifice and great adventure.

"'As regards that,' he replied fearlessly, while in the light of the
ever-brightening dawn I could, see the suspender on his right leg
gradually charring, so that he must already have been in great pain, 'as
regards that, it is largely the proneness of the modern British to leap
to verbal extremity which is inducing me to afford them this
object-lesson in restraint and commonsense. Ouch!'

"This momentary ejaculation seemed to escape him in spite of all his iron
control; and the smell of burning flesh brought home to me as nothing
else, perhaps, could have done the tortures he must have been suffering.

"'I feel,' he went on very gravely, 'that extravagance of word and
conduct is fatal to my country, and having so profoundly experienced its
effects upon myself, I am now endeavouring by a shining example to supply
a remedy for a disease which is corroding the vitals and impairing the
sanity of my countrymen and making them a race of second-hand spiritual
drunkards. Ouch!'

"I confess that at this moment the tears started to my eyes, for a more
sublime show than the spectacle of this devoted man slowly roasting
himself to death before my eyes for the good of his country I had seldom
seen. It had a strange, an appalling interest, and for nothing on earth
could I have torn my gaze away. I now realized to the full for the first
time the will-power and heroism of the human species, and I rejoiced with
a glorious new feeling that I was of the same breed as this man, made of
such stern stuff that not even a tear rolled down his cheeks to quench
the flames that leaped around him ever higher and higher. And the dawn
came up in the eastern sky; and I knew that a great day was preparing for
mankind; and with my eyes fixed upon him as he turned blacker and blacker
I let my heart