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His playing revealed his soul as a wanderer in the wilderness—as a giant whose strength is doomed to slumber under the weight of unbreakable shackles; it showed that, to him, life was a slow, consuming pain, the purpose of which he could not grasp; that he was born with a wealth of power, yet found no single thing to which he could devote it. Here he was, heir to the estate, and yet—perhaps for that very reason—born in bondage.

Despite his youth, Ormarr was alive to the danger of his changing moods, which, as he often thought, bordered on insanity. Proud as he was of being heir to Borg, he nevertheless felt a smouldering hatred of his heritage, since it fettered him from birth. With all these longings in his soul, he was conscious of being himself part and parcel of Borg; something told him that here, and here alone, was the soil in which his personality and varying moods could grow into one harmonious and united whole. He had only to follow in the steps of his fathers. But this, again, seemed too easy a solution of the riddle of life—he preferred a struggle to the death. It was as if his descent, and his natural prospects, excluded him from all the adventures he longed for; the part for which he seemed cast was beneath the level of his strength and ability.