The Masterfolk to be free must be strong in conduct. Yet again this is not enough. For the strong man to be free must be strong of will. Yet even this is not enough; for the will that acteth against the conscience becomes a bully’s strength and will reel before it finish.
Through the conscience shall each man receive purification in his search, which has been the eternal search, for the godhead within him that leads to the fullest life. Therefore the Masterfolk to be free must be strong in conscience—for instinct is at the mystic centre of life. Yet even to be spiritually free is not enough.
For the spirit cannot live but through the body. Therefore the Masterfolk must be strong alike in all the freedoms—for in each is the foundation of the other, and in the failure of each is the obliteration of the other. Strong and alert in body, and in thinking, and in will, and in conduct, and in conscience.
That man cannot be wholly free who shall ignore any of these freedoms.”...
CHAPTER LXXXI
Wherein the Widow Snacheur comes into her Fortune
The chill murk that swept up the narrow cobbled street in the pitchy night, swishing long wreathes of fog across the rare lamp-light, told that the river lay close at hand.
It was a bitter night; and the winds buffeted out of unseen blacknesses and squealed in a riot of unkindnesses, smiting the face of things and falling away sullenly to smite again; the dingy alley creaked with the complainings of shutters and lamps that strained and jolted in their rusty hinges and grumbled in their iron sockets.