Yet beneath the surface there was, he told himself, a profound revulsion from everything that he had once enjoyed and loved--an apathy of soul which made him a moving shadow in a universe of stark unrealities.

He knew that he was sinking deeper and deeper into this morass of indifference; he realized, at times vividly, that his only hope was in change, in a complete break with the past and a complete plunge into the future.

His reason told him this, and yet, though he longed passionately to let himself go--to make the wild dash for freedom--his disabled will, the nervous indecision from which he suffered, prevented both his liberation and his recovery.

There were hours of grayness when he told himself that he had neither the fortitude to endure the old nor the energy to embrace the new.

In his nature, as in his environment, two opposing spirits were struggling: the realistic spirit which saw things as they were and the romantic spirit which saw things as they ought to be.