So he tossed ... in scorn: This is the turning-point of the
James Russell Lowell
moral movement of the story. Sir Launfal at the very beginning makes
his fatal mistake; his noble spirit and lofty purposes break down with
the first test. He refuses to see a brother in the loathsome leper;
the light and warmth of human brotherhood had not yet entered his
soul, just as the summer sunshine had not entered the frowning castle.
The regeneration of his soul must be worked out through wandering and
suffering. Compare the similar plot of the _Ancient Mariner_.