Lawrence in Retrospect

If the lucky chance should take us unaware, would we, at sight, recognise genius in a stranger? Would we have seen at once that T. E. Lawrence, for an instance, was as singular a figure as one out of a fable of the Arabian Nights? I don't think so. Anyhow, I did not. When first I saw him, as a stranger, I wondered what that apparently insignificant fellow was doing there; and then forgot him, till he came up and spoke to me.