Heights than of visiting the mountains of the moon. Yet Hampstead Heath,
which he could see in a morning for the cost of a threepenny ride in the
Tube, is one of the incomparable things of Nature. I doubt whether there is
such a wonderful open space within the limits of any other great city. It
has hints of the seaside and the mountain, the moor and the down in most
exquisite union, and the Spaniards Road is as noble a promenade as you will
find anywhere.

This incuriousness is not a peculiarity of Londoners only. It is a part of
that temporising habit that afflicts most of us. If a thing can be done at
any time, then that is just the thing that never gets done. If my Fleet
Street friend knew that the Tower was going to be blown to pieces by a
Zeppelin to-morrow he would, I am sure, rush off to see it this afternoon.
But he is conscious that he has a whole lifetime to see it in, and so he
will never see it. We are most of us slackers at the bottom, and need the
discipline of a timetable to keep us on the move. If I could put off
writing this article till to-morrow I should easily convince myself that I
hadn't time to write it to-day.

The point is very well expressed in that story of the Pope who received
three American visitors in turn. "How long are you staying?" he said to the
first. "Six months, your Holiness," was the reply. "You will be able to see
something of Rome in that time," said the Pope. The second was staying
three months. "You will see a great deal of Rome in three months," said the
Pope. The third was only staying three weeks. "You'll see all there is to
be seen in Rome in three weeks," was the Pope's comment. He was a good
judge of human nature.

But if we Londoners are no worse than most people we certainly miss more,
for there is no such book of revelation as this which we look at so