being indubitably, in any case, at sea, with no harbour
of refuge till the end of my serial voyage. If I succeeded at all in that
emulation (in another sphere) of the pursued ostrich I must have succeeded
altogether; must have buried my head in the sand and there found beatitude. The
explanation of my enjoyment of it, no doubt, is that I was more than commonly
enamoured of my idea, and that I believed it, so trusted, so imaginatively
fostered, not less capable of limping to its goal on three feet than on one. The
lameness might be what it would: I clearly, for myself, felt the thing go -
which is the most a dramatist can ever ask of his drama; and I shall here
accordingly indulge myself in speaking first of how, superficially, it did so
proceed; explaining then what I mean by its practical dependence on a miracle.
    It had come to me, this happy, halting view of an interesting case, abruptly
enough, some years before: I recall sharply the felicity of the first glimpse,
though I forget the accident of thought that produced it. I recall that I was
seated in an American horse-car when I found myself, of a sudden, considering
with enthusiasm, as the theme of a story, the situation, in another country and
an aristocratic society, of some robust but insidiously beguiled and betrayed,
some cruelly wronged, compatriot: the point being in especial that he should
suffer at the hands of persons pretending to represent the highest possible
civilisation and to be of an order in every way superior to his own. What would
he do in that predicament, how would he right himself, or how, failing a remedy,
would he conduct himself under his wrong? This would be the question involved,
and I remember well how, having entered the horse-car without a dream of it, I
was presently to leave that vehicle in full possession of my answer. He would
behave in the most interesting manner - it would all depend on that: stricken,
smarting, sore, he would arrive at his just vindication and then would fail of
all triumphantly and all vulgarly enjoying it. He would hold his revenge and
cherish it and feel its sweetness, and then in the very act of forcing it home
would sacrifice it in disgust. He would let them go, in short, his haughty
contemners, even while feeling them, with joy, in his power, and he would obey,
in so doing, one of the large and easy impulses generally characteristic of his
type. He wouldn