He was disappointed in his goal, in the persons he had climbed to be with.

On the other hand, he was encouraged with his success.

The climb had been easier than he expected.
He was superior to the climb, and (he did not, with false modesty, hide it from himself) he was superior to the beings among whom he had climbed--with the exception, of course, of Professor Caldwell.

About life and the books he knew more than they, and he wondered into what nooks and crannies they had cast aside their educations.

He did not know that he was himself possessed of unusual brain vigor; nor did he know that the persons who were given to probing the depths and to thinking ultimate thoughts were not to be found in the drawing rooms of the world's Morses; nor did he dream that such persons were as lonely eagles sailing solitary in the azure sky far above the earth and its swarming freight of gregarious life..