This was a point that he had not consciously yet considered, from the day on which he had left Cambridge.

The impetus of his first impulse and the extreme strength of his purpose had, up to the present--helped along by novelty--kept him going.

Of course, the moment had to come sooner or later; but it seems a little hard that he was obliged to face it in that peculiarly dreary clarity of mind that falls upon the sleepless an hour or two before the dawn.
For, as he looked at it all now, he saw it as an outsider would see it, no longer from the point of view of his own personality.

He perceived a young man, of excellent abilities and prospects, sacrificing these things for an idea that fell to pieces the instant it was touched.

He touched it now with a critical finger, and it did so fall to pieces; there was, obviously, nothing in it at all.