is a simple, hardy being who has had to fight to live, and for a companion in this world we prefer one who has had to depend first and last on what is manly in himself. For this reason Knox's moralizings are never quite tedious. One feels the man behind the writing. There is someone robust and sturdy at the back of it all. Life proved Knox to the bone before he earned his leave to write. A man so proved is genuine whether he be enlightened or not.
Knox was not enlightened. Like other unenlightened men, he finds it difficult to express himself. His book gives a reader the impression of an entirely sincere man entirely confused. It is as though a jumble of piety, avarice, suspicion, delicate noble feeling, utter callousness, and rule of thumb were hung upon a character essentially upright and simple. Now and then he is even heroic. One of his simple acts of piety strikes us as indescribably heroic. His father and he, with other members of the crew, went ashore on Ceylon and were captured by the Sinhalese. He was allowed to go back to the ship with a message. Before he set out with this message he promised his father that he
