The second preliminary is to realise that all physical phenomena are interrelated, that there is nothing which does not bear on everything else.  The whole spectacular and sensual show—­what the eye sees, the ear hears, the nose scents, the tongue tastes and the skin touches—­is a cause or an effect of human conduct.  Naught can be ruled out as negligible, as not forming part of the equation.  Hence he who would beyond all others see life for himself—­I naturally mean the novelist and playwright—­ought to embrace all phenomena in his curiosity.  Being finite, he cannot.  Of course he cannot!  But he can, by obtaining a broad notion of the whole, determine with some accuracy the position and relative importance of the particular series of phenomena to which his instinct draws him.  If he does not thus envisage the immense background of his special interests, he will lose the most precious feeling for interplay and proportion without which all specialism becomes distorted and positively darkened.

Now, the main factor in life on this planet is the planet itself.  Any logically conceived survey of existence must begin with geographical and climatic phenomena.  This is surely obvious.  If you say that you are not interested in meteorology or the configurations of the earth, I say that you deceive yourself.  You are.  For an east wind may upset your liver and cause you to insult your wife.  Beyond question the most important fact about, for example, Great Britain is that it is an island.  We sail amid the Hebrides, and then talk of the fine qualities and the distressing limitations of those islanders; it ought to occur to us English that we are talking of ourselves in little.  In moments of journalistic vainglory we are apt to refer to the “sturdy island race,” meaning us.  But that we are insular in the full significance of the horrid word is certain.  Why not?  A genuine observation of the supreme phenomenon that Great Britain is surrounded by water—­an effort to keep it always at the back of the consciousness—­will help to explain all the minor phenomena of British existence.  Geographical knowledge is the mother of discernment, for the varying physical characteristics of the earth are the sole direct terrestrial influence determining the evolution of original vital energy.

All other influences are secondary, and have been effects of character and temperament before becoming causes.  Perhaps the greatest of them are roads and architecture.  Nothing could be more English than English roads, or more French than French roads.  Enter England from France, let us say through the gate of Folkestone, and the architectural illustration which greets you (if you can look and see) is absolutely dramatic in its spectacular force.  You say that there is no architecture in Folkestone.  But Folkestone, like other towns, is just as full of architecture as a wood is full of trees.  As the train winds on its causeway over the sloping town you perceive