They, the professors, were right in their literary judgments because they were successes.

Martin's literary judgments were wrong because he could not sell his wares.

To use his own phrase, they made good, and he did not make good.

And besides, it did not seem reasonable that he should be right--he who had stood, so short a time before, in that same living room, blushing and awkward, acknowledging his introduction, looking fearfully about him at the bric-a- brac his swinging shoulders threatened to break, asking how long since Swinburne died, and boastfully announcing that he had read "Excelsior" and the "Psalm of Life." Unwittingly, Ruth herself proved his point that she worshipped the established.

Martin followed the processes of her thoughts, but forbore to go farther.