Until the end of his first year at school, Cyril retained many of the pleasures and pursuits he had brought with him from home, and he kept an old interest in butterflies and fossils. His grandmother had presented him with a fine bird's eggs cabinet, but he could never bring himself to risk in climbing trees. Once or twice he dissected dead birds from sheer determination to overcome his horror of the operation. Probably it was his envy of those physically unlike himself that brought on a phase during which he drew massive athletes with thick necks and square shoulders. Again he was pitying himself for what he could never be.

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The reason Why Cyril made drawings of athletes was that