THE SEA LADY
certain respect for truth; duty—also in moderation. Eh? It's just that even balance that I cannot contrive. I cannot sit down to the oatmeal of this daily life and wash it down with a temperate draught of beauty and water. Art! . . . I suppose I'm voracious, I'm one of the unfit—for the civilised stage. I've sat down once, I've sat down twice, to perfectly sane, secure, and reasonable things. . . . It's not my way."
He repeated, "It's not my way."
Melville, I think, said nothing to that. He was distracted from the immediate topic by the discussion of his own way of living. He was lost in egotistical comparisons. No doubt he was on the verge of saying, as most of us would have been under the circumstances: "I don't think you quite understand my position."
"But, after all, what is the good of
276
