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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: neither in walls nor bolts now. Unreasoning terror turning
everything to account, his old time boyish admiration of the
athletic Tom, the undaunted Tom (he had seemed to him invincible),
helped to paralyse his faculties, added to his despair.
He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul suffering
more anguish than any sinner's body had ever suffered from rack or
boot. The depth of his torment may be measured when I say that
this young man, as brave at least as the average of his kind,
contemplated seizing a pistol and firing into his own head. But a
deadly, chilly, langour was spreading over his limbs. It was as if
his flesh had been wet plaster stiffening slowly about his ribs.
Within the Tides |
