SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM would be that rarity, an extraordinary tale of action, adventure, politics, and introspection, told by a writer who was also a first-rate intellectual and man of letters (the two -are- different), if it weren't also part of a tradition in English letters: the man or woman such as Charles Doughty or Gertrude Bell or Hester Stanhope or Freya Stark, or the men who went off and