...it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough. - T. H. White

"I am writing a treatise just now" said the badger, coughing diffidently to show that he was absolutely set on explaining it, "which is to point out why Man has become the master of the animals. Perhaps you would like to hear it? It's for my doctor's degree you know," he added hastily, before Wart could protest. He got few chances of reading his treatise to anybody, so he could not bear to let the opportunity slip by.

He was aware that her unthinkable beauty was neither that of age nor of youth. That her eyes were the only things you thought of looking at, and that to be her was terrible, whereas to be with her was the only joy.

He did not see a hero of romance, but a plain man who had done his best — not a leader of chivalry, but the pupil who had tried to be faithful to his curious master, the magician, by thinking all the time — not Arthur of England, but a lonely old gentleman who had worn his crown for half a lifetime in the teeth of fate.