I do not say it merely as a sneer, for obvious things are very easily forgotten; and indeed every high civilisation decays by forgetting obvious things.
But it is true that in such a solitude men tend to take very simple ideas as if they were entirely new ideas.

There is a love of concentration which comes from the lack of comparison.

The lonely man looking at the lonely palm-tree does see the elementary truths about the palm-tree; and the elementary truths are very essential.
Thus he does see that though the palm-tree may be a very simple design, it was not he who designed it.

It may look like a tree drawn by a child, but he is not the child who could draw it.

He has not command of that magic slate on which the pictures can come to life, or of that magic green chalk of which the green lines can grow.
He sees at once that a power is at work in whose presence he and the palm-tree are alike little children.