nor how his opportunity was to come, but he never
doubted that it would come in spite of all that had happened, and above
all else he cherished the hope that he might know how to seize it if it
came, for whatever it was it would be something that no one else could do
so well as he could. People said there were no dragons and giants for
adventurous men to fight with nowadays; it was beginning to dawn upon him
that there were just as many now as at any past time.

Monstrous as such a faith may seem in one who was qualifying himself for
a high mission by a term of imprisonment, he could no more help it than
he could help breathing; it was innate in him, and it was even more with
a view to this than for other reasons that he wished to sever the
connection between himself and his parents; for he knew that if ever the
day came in which it should appear that before him too there was a race
set in which it might be an honour to have run among the foremost, his
father and mother would be the first to let him and hinder him in running
it. They had been the first to say that he ought to run such a race;
they would also be the first to trip him up if he took them at their
word, and then afterwards upbraid him for not having won. Achievement of
any kind would be impossible for him unless he was free from those who
would be for ever dragging him back into the conventional. The
conventional had been tried already and had been found wanting.

He had an opportunity now, if he chose to take it, of escaping once for
all from those who at once tormented him and would hold him earthward
should a chance of soaring open before him. He should never have had it
but for his imprisonment; but for this the force of habit and routine
would have been too strong for him; he should hardly have had it if he
had not lost all his money; the gap would not have been so wide but that
he might have been inclined to throw a plank across it. He rejoiced now,
therefore, over his loss of money as well as over his imprisonment, which
had made it more easy for him to follow his truest and most lasting
interests.

At times he wavered, when he thought of how his mother, who in her way,
as he thought, had loved him, would weep and think sadly over him, or how
perhaps she might even fall ill and die, and how the blame would rest
with him. At these times his resolution was near breaking, but when he
found I applauded his design, the voice within, which bade hi