"It surely is. It's terribly hard. The point is that nobody but the person himself can make any sort of a guess at it. And it's awfully hard for _him_. Wouldn't you think, when it is so hard under the best of circumstances, that folks would try to teach every youngster to make the best sort of guess possible as to where he really belongs? But they never give you any hint of that, in any of the 'education' you get in school or out of it. They seem to be in mortal terror for fear you will find it out yourself. They jam your beak down on the chalk-line and hope to goodness you'll never look up long enough to see that only your own foolishness keeps you there. Or they keep you there till you've tied yourself up with responsibilities, so you _can't_ get out. Whatever is the fashion of your country and of your century, that's the thing for you to do, whether or not. "I believe that's what Europe has done for me, made me realize that our present fashion isn't foreordained, nor the only one natural to men. Think of all the centuries after the Roman bridges went down, when people got along without bridges, because no provision was made to keep alive the minds that happened to be born with latent constructive powers. No, no, there must be no fooling around with godless abstract mathematical ideas, nor fiddling with compasses. A crucifix or a sword must be in every man's hand. Every man must be a fighter or a saint, if he was to be allowed by public opinion to have his necessary share of esteem and self-respect. And there are so many kinds of folks besides fighters and saints! Century after century they died without having lived, and we're walking around over their dust this minute. And yet even the fighters and the saints needed bridges! And here we are in the twentieth century, jumping the life out of anybody who isn't interested in building bridges, and hooting at him if he feels the impulse to try to be a saint. It's enough to make you tear your hair out by handfuls, isn't it?" Another day Marise launched him off on the same theme by asking him skeptically, "Well, suppose you could have your own way about things, what would you do to help people find their own right group and work and climate and surroundings? I don't see how there is the faintest possibility of helping them."