He did not touch the springs of being at all. He had collapsed, he
felt, into placid acquiescence; Nature had been too strong for him.
He had fitted so easily into the pleasant scheme of things, and he
was doing nothing in the world but helping to prolong the delusion,
just as men set painted glass in a window to shut out the raincloud
and the wind. He was a conformist, he felt, in everything--in
religion, intellect, life--but a sceptic underneath. Was he not
perhaps missing the whole object and aim of life and experience, in
a fenced fortress of quiet? The thought stung him suddenly with a
kind of remorse. He was doing no part of the world's work, not
sharing its emotions or passions or pains or difficulties; he was
placidly at ease in Zion, in the comfortable city whose pleasures
were based on the toil of those outside. That was a hateful
thought! Had not the boy been right after all? Must one not somehow
link one's arm with life and share its pilgrimage, even in
weariness and tears?

There came a tap at the door, and one of his shyest pupils entered--
a solitary youth, poor and unfriended, who was doing all he could
to get a degree good enough to launch him in the world. He came to
ask some advice about work. Howard entered into his case as well as
he could, told him it was important that he should get certain
points clear, gave him an informal lecture, distinctly and
emphatically, and made a few friendly remarks. The man beamed with
unexpressed gratitude.

"What solemn nonsense I have been talking!" thought Howard to
himself as the young man slipped away. "Of course he must learn all
this--but what for? To get a mastership, and to retail it all over
again! It's a vicious circle, this education which is in touch with