He felt that he should stifle unless he could break away into a place
where there were winds and blown shadows and pure sunshine. He admired
her; he might have loved her; but she smothered him like that rich and
heavy wave of the past from which he was still struggling to free
himself. For he knew now that it was not the past he wanted; it was the
future. Above all things he needed release, he needed deliverance; and
yet he knew, more surely at this moment than ever before, that he was
not free, that he was still in chains, still the servant, not the
master, of tradition. He lacked the courage of life, the will to feel
and to live. Only through emotion, only through some courageous
adventure of the spirit, only through daring to be human, could he reach
liberation; and yet he could not dare; he could not let himself go; he
could not lose his life in order that he might find it. Corinna was
right, he felt, when she called him a prig. She was right though he
hated priggishness, though he longed to be natural and human, to let
himself be swept away on the tide of some irresistible impulse.
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