what I think was a nice feeling in leaving England. His sojourn
in our land had not crowned him with brilliance. He was not a being
created for society, nor for cutting a figure, nor for exhibiting tact
and prudence in the crises of existence. He could neither talk well nor
read well, nor express himself in exactly suitable actions. He could
only express himself at the end of a brush. He could only paint
extremely beautiful pictures. That was the major part of his vitality.
In minor ways he may have been, upon occasions, a fool. But he was never
a fool on canvas. He said everything there, and said it to perfection,
for those who could read, for those who can read, and for those who will
be able to read five hundred years hence. Why expect more from him? Why
be disappointed in him? One does not expect a wire-walker to play fine
billiards. You yourself, mirror of prudence that you are, would have
certainly avoided all Priam's manifold errors in the conduct of his
social career; but, you see, he was divine in another way.

As the steamer sped along the lengthening pathway from England, one
question kept hopping in and out of his mind:

"_I wonder what they'll do with me next time_?"

Do not imagine that he and Alice were staring over the stern at the
singular isle. No! There were imperative reasons, which affected both of
them, against that. It was only in the moments of the comparative calm
which always follows insurrections, that Priam had leisure to wonder,
and to see his own limitations, and joyfully to meditate upon the
prospect of age devoted to the sole doing of that which he could so
supremely, in a sweet exile with the enchantress, Alice.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days
by Arnold Bennett

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