Perhaps after all he did meet the tall girl in the dingle, in which case he was a fool for all his pains, losing a gift the gods could not restore.
Quite apart from this particular doubt, the reader of Borrow feels that good luck, happy chance, plays a larger part in the charm of the composition than is quite befitting were Borrow to be reckoned an artist.
But nobody surely will quarrel with this ingredient.

It can turn no stomach.

Happy are the lucky writers! Write as they will, they are almost certain to please.

There is such a thing as 'sweet unreasonableness.' But no sooner is this said than the necessity for instant and substantial qualification becomes urgent, for though Borrow's personal vanity would have been wounded had he been ranked with the literary gentlemen who do business in words, his anger would have been justly aroused had he been told he did not know how to write.

He did know how to write, and he acquired the art in the usual way, by taking pains.