But I don't seem to have seen anything of them--only just
ordinary and simple people."
Amroth laughed.
"You do say the most extraordinarily ingenuous things," he said. "In the
first place, of course, we have quite a different scale of values here.
People do not take rank by their accomplishments, but by their power of
loving. Many of the great men of earth--and this is particularly the
case with writers and artists--are absolutely nothing here. They had, it
is true, a fine and delicate brain, on which they played with great
skill; but half the artists of the world are great as artists, simply
because they do not care. They perceive and they express; but they would
not have the heart to do it at all, if they really cared. Some of them,
no doubt, were men of great hearts, and they have their place and work.
But to claim to see all the highest spirits together is as absurd as if
you called on a doctor in London at eleven o'clock and expected to meet
all the great physicians at his house, intent on general conversation.
Some of the great people, indeed, you have met, and they were very
simple persons on earth.
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