of ordinary eyes. But his eyes were strong, and they were backed by a
body superbly strong. Furthermore, his mind was fallow. It had lain
fallow all his life so far as the abstract thought of the books was
concerned, and it was ripe for the sowing. It had never been jaded by
study, and it bit hold of the knowledge in the books with sharp teeth
that would not let go.

It seemed to him, by the end of the week, that he had lived centuries, so
far behind were the old life and outlook. But he was baffled by lack of
preparation. He attempted to read books that required years of
preliminary specialization. One day he would read a book of antiquated
philosophy, and the next day one that was ultra-modern, so that his head
would be whirling with the conflict and contradiction of ideas. It was
the same with the economists. On the one shelf at the library he found
Karl Marx, Ricardo, Adam Smith, and Mill, and the abstruse formulas of
the one gave no clew that the ideas of another were obsolete. He was
bewildered, and yet he wanted to know. He had become interested, in a
day, in economics, industry, and politics. Passing through the City Hall
Park, he had noticed a group of men, in the centre of which were half a
dozen, with flushed faces and raised voices, earnestly carrying on a
discussion. He joined the listeners, and heard a new, alien tongue in
the mouths of the philosophers of the people. One was a tramp, another
was a labor agitator, a third was a law-school student, and the remainder
was composed of wordy workingmen. For the first time he heard of
socialism, anarchism, and single tax, and learned that there were warring
social philosophies. He heard hundreds of technical words that were new
to him, belonging to fields of thought that his meagre reading had never
touched upon. Because of this he could not follow the arguments closely,
and he could only guess at and surmise the ideas wrapped up in such
strange expressions. Then there was a black-eyed restaurant waiter who