Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr … - Mervyn Peake

For Peake, the weight of moral standards comes from their being part of a tradition, and any tradition lies outside the individual’s potential and needs. Thus adherence to a morality impedes development of the whole self and denies real maturity.

How merciful a thing is man’s ignorance of his immediate future! What a ghastly, paralysing thing it would have been if all those present could have known what was about to happen within a matter of seconds!

“Then be silent,” said Titus, and in spite of his anger, the heady wine of autocracy tasted sweet upon his tongue—sweet and dangerous—for he was only now learning that he had power over others, not only through the influence of his birthright but through a native authority that was being wielded for the first time—and all this he knew to be dangerous, for as it grew, this bullying would taste ever sweeter and fiercer and the naked cry of freedom would become faint and the Thing who had taught him freedom would become no more than a memory.