Certainly it was an extraordinary thing that the only critics he had ever had in his life had all three attacked his theory of living at precisely the same point. They had all three urged him to get in touch with his environment. He himself could unanswerably demonstrate that in such degree as he succeeded in isolating himself from his environment--at least until his great work was done--in just that degree would his life be successful. But these three seemed to declare, with the confidence of those who state an axiom, that in just that degree was his life a failure. Of course they could not demonstrate their contention as he could demonstrate his, but the absence of reasoning did not appear to shake their assurance in the smallest. Here then was another apparent conflict of instinct with reason: their instinct with his reason. Perhaps he might have dismissed the whole thing as merely their religion, but that his father, with that mysterious letter of counsel, was among them. He did not picture his father as a religious man. Besides, Fifi, asked point-blank if that was her religion, had denied, assuring him, singularly enough, that it was only common-sense. And among them, among all the people that had touched him in this new life, there was no denying that he had had some curiously unsettling experiences. He had been ready to turn the pages of the book of life for Fifi, an infant at his knee, and all at once Fifi had taken the book from his hands and read aloud, in a language which was quite new to him, a lecture on his own short-comings. There was no denying that her question about his notions on altruism had given him an odd, arresting glimpse of himself from a new peak. He had set out in his pride to punish Mr. Pat, and Mr. Pat had severely punished him, revealing him humiliatingly to himself as a physical incompetent. He had dismissed Buck Klinker as a faintly amusing brother to the ox, and now Buck Klinker was giving him valuable advice about his editorial work, to say nothing of jerking him by the ears toward physical competency. He had thought to honor the _Post_ by contributing of his wisdom to it, and the _Post_ had replied by contemptuously kicking him out. He had laughed at Colonel Cowles's editorials, and now he was staying out of bed of nights slavishly struggling to imitate them. He had meant to give Miss Weyland some expert advice some day about the running of her department, and suddenly she had turned about and stamped him as an all-around failure, meet not for reverence, but the laughter and pity of men.