He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. his whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like cellini’s cast perseus. which best states the theme that is developed in this excerpt? man’s ability to exercise free will the paralysis that fate inflicts on man the flexibility of man’s intellect man’s inability to impact nature