The image of the “presence,” whatever it was, waiting there for him to go–this image had not yet been so concrete for his nerves as when he stopped short of the point at which certainty would have come to him. For, with all his resolution, or more exactly with all his dread, he did stop short–he hung back from really seeing. The risk was too great and his fear too definite: it took at this moment an awful specific form.

The image of the “presence,” whatever it was, waiting there for him to go–this image had not yet been so concrete for his nerves as when he stopped short of the point at which certainty would have come to him. For, with all his resolution, or more exactly with all his dread, he did stop short–he hung back from really seeing. The risk was too great and his fear too definite: it took at this moment an awful specific form.

– Henry James –

The Jolly Corner

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