But we know as a
matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day
and makes cowards of the most learned.
Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way
error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to
accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the
philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash.
To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor
reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no.
I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin
one--if, at least, I catch you early after the experience.
The Great Sight
All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams
was very old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but there
hung from beam to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, and here
and there from this wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a symbol of
the time, and the place, and the people. There was no local by-law to
forbid such a thing, or if there was, no one dreamt of obeying it.
Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion
and I, at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which
is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely
ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the
plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the steep
bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all at
random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were nearing
the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the high flat we
should have a greater horizon and a better chance of catching any
indications of men or arms.
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