The consciousness of greatness and power which accompanies the unshackling of genius is mistaken for megalomania and contrasted with the accompanying inability to achieve worldly success along well-trodden roads. The result is contempt and ridicule. Strindberg descended from his peak of glory, and for the seventh time the prodigal son returned to his father's house. He was not welcome. He had proved himself a good-for-nothing, and the family now treated him with open contempt. Life at home became intolerable and he again fled to the sea. He lived for some time at Sandhamn, amongst pilots and coastguard-men. Acquaintance with the sea-faring life was a tonic to the mind and an incentive to interest in the practical side of life. "You are twenty-four," said one of these friends to him, "and you are nothing yet. You are surely going to be something, like other people, even if you want to be an author, for one can't live on that." Wise and timely words. Following his friend's advice, Strindberg aspired to a clerk-ship in the local telegraph office, and diligently practised the art of the telegraph operator. After a month he was allowed to send off the weather telegrams. The office routine was somewhat painful, but life amongst honest and hard-working seamen showed him new sides of human character, and the steady sense of duty which keeps the mind placid and happy amidst whirlpools and storms. Two shipwrecks off the coast supplied material for picturesque and vivid description, which he made use of in letters to _Dagens Nyheter_, one of the daily papers of Stockholm. The letters brought him a good offer of work on the staff of the paper, which he thankfully accepted. At first everything went smoothly. The editorial office was like an observatory, from which one could study the world and watch history in the making. By inapt comparison between the old University and the potentialities of the new Press, his contempt for the former grew. The pressman is invested with authority. By the aid of modern inventions and the efficient organisation of the news-service, he is enabled to survey events on the world's stage, and to seize its acting personalities whilst they are still warm with speech. He becomes the central nervous system of pulsating humanity; he is expected to interpret its sensory impressions and to enrich the body-social by concepts and opinions. Strindberg saw the power of the Press, and in the anticipatory joy of being able to express himself freely, he buried his old disgust at the wickedness of journalism.