acutely conscious he had been that they were paved with stone, walled with
stone, roofed with a stony sky, peopled with faces and hearts of stone. How
miserably insignificant he had felt!

And all these years he had been almost content to be one of the crowd, like
them exerting himself barely enough to provide himself with the essentials
of existence. Like them, he had given no real thought to the morrow. And
now, with comparatively little labour, he had put himself in the way to
become a master, a director of the enormous concentrated energies summed up
in the magic word New York.

The key to the situation was--work, incessant, self-improving,
self-developing. "And it is the key to happiness also," he thought. "Work
and sleep--the two periods of unconsciousness of self--are the two periods
of happiness."

His aloofness freed him from the temptations of distraction. He knew no
women. He did not put himself in the way of meeting them. He kept away from
theatres. He sunk himself in a routine of labour which, viewed from the
outside, seemed dull and monotonous. Viewed from his stand-point of
acquisition, of achievement, it was just the reverse.

The mind soon adapts itself to and enjoys any mental routine which
exercises it. The only difficulty is in forming the habit of the routine.

Howard was greatly helped by his natural bent toward editorial writing. The
idea of discussing important questions each day with a vast multitude as an
audience stirred his imagination and aroused his instincts for helping on
the great world-task of elevating the race. This enthusiasm pleased and
also amused his cynical chief.