There were two reasons for it. The first--the one most often heard--was the story going round that he had been, and probably still was, out of his mind. No deadlier or crueler weapon can be used against a man than that same charge as to his sanity. It has been known to destroy, or seriously maim, brilliant and able men with no trace of any of the untrustworthy kinds of insanity. Where the man's own conduct gives color to the report, the attack is usually mortal. And Norman had acted the crazy man. The second reason was the hostility of Burroughs, reinforced by all the hatreds and jealousies Norman's not too respectful way of dealing with his fellow men had been creating through fifteen years. The worst moment in the life of a man who has always proudly regarded himself as above any need whatever from his fellow men is when he discovers all in a flash, that the timid animal he spurned as it fawned has him upon his back, has its teeth and claws at his helpless throat. For four months he stood out against the isolation, the suspicion as to his sanity, the patronizing pity of men who but a little while before had felt honored when he spoke to them. For four months he gave battle to unseen and silent foes compassing him on every side. He had no spirit for the fight; his love of Dorothy Hallowell and his complete rout there had taken the spirit out of him--and with it had gone that confidence in himself and in his luck which had won him so many critical battles. Then--He had been keeping up a large suite of offices, a staff of clerks and stenographers and all the paraphernalia of the great and successful lawyer. He had been spreading out the little business he got in a not unsuccessful effort to make it appear big and growing. He now gave up these offices and the costly pride, pomp and circumstance--left with several thousand dollars owing. He took two small rooms in a building tenanted by beginners and cheap shysters. He continued to live at his club, where even the servants were subtly insolent to him; he could see the time approaching when he might have to let himself be dropped for failing to pay dues and bills. He stared at his ruin in stupid and dazed amazement. Usually, to hear or to read about such a catastrophe as this is to get a vague, rather impressive notion of something picturesque and romantic. Ruined, like all the big fateful words, has a dignified sound. But the historians and novelists and poets and other keepers of human records have a pleasant, but not very honest way, of omitting practically all the essentials from their records and substituting glittering imaginings that delight the reader--and wofully mislead him as to the truth about life. What wonder that we learn slowly--and improve slowly. How wofully we have been, and are, misled by all upon whom we have relied as teachers.