He tried to remember whether any of these thoughts had been formulated in his mind a month ago.

He was, indeed, conscious that his high reverence for women in the abstract had been growing in him for years, but he had had no idea how strong his belief had grown in this reverence as an element in social affairs.
Doubtless the Doctor had often questioned why it was that women had so little weight in the scale, why they did so little of all they might do, and he had read something of their doings across the ocean.

But it had all been vague, thick, and foggy, whereas now it was all sharp and clean-edged.

He had made the first step out of his dreams in that he had thought its realisation possible, and none but dreamers know how great and wide that step is.

The first faint dawning, "It may be true, after all," is as different from the remote, listless view of the shadowy thought incapable of materialisation, as a landscape picture seen by candle-light is different from the glorious reality of the scene it represents.