It got hold of me first, I suppose, by the charm of its poetry. Then, it seemed to me that the great Greek thinkers were mostly facing the same problems as ourselves, but facing them more freely and frankly, not hampered by all the complexities and inherited conventions that confuse us today. They did sincerely and simply try to understand truth and justice and the good life.
Then, at last, in 1914 came the shock of the Great War, bringing for me, as for so many people, not any change of belief but a great change of focus. The prevention of war became the thing that mattered most in the world. I took part in the founding of the League of Nations, and for thirty years now, I have been working in that cause, learning, I think, a good deal by the way.