It was said that the love of those towers passed into the blood. It was
said that he who had sat beneath them could never again be quite the
same. Miltoun knew that it was true--desperately true, of himself. In
person he had sat there but three weeks, but in soul he seemed to have
been sitting there hundreds of years. And now he would sit there no
more! An almost frantic desire to free himself from this coil rose
up within him. To be held a prisoner by that most secret of all his
instincts, the instinct for authority! To be unable to wield authority
because to wield authority was to insult authority. God! It was hard!
He turned his back on the towers; and sought distraction in the faces of
the passers-by.
Each of these, he knew, had his struggle to keep self-respect! Or was it
that they were unconscious of struggle or of self-respect, and just let
things drift? They looked like that, most of them! And all his inherent
contempt for the average or common welled up as he watched them. Yes,
they looked like that! Ironically, the sight of those from whom he had
desired the comfort of compromise, served instead to stimulate that part
of him which refused to let him compromise. They looked soft, soggy,
without pride or will, as though they knew that life was too much for
them, and had shamefully accepted the fact.
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