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Although Morris had never reached the heart-strings of his pupil, the youth was his one human interest -- his father was dead long since; and as Fessenden fully realized his debt of gratitude to the capable and conscientious tutor, as well as being a person in whom habit struck long roots, the parting was unexpectedly affecting. As Fessenden returned from the station of the little town of Turbine, where he was to spend the greater part of the next four years, he suddenly conceived a violent antipathy for his new surroundings, and a desire to flee back to his mountains. This flat interminable prairie, this cheap town, not an elevation in sight, much less the mountains which had gone far into the modelling of his nature -- there was nothing here resembling the great world of which he had dreamed.
He longed for real solitude, feeling for the first time the miserable substitute the crowd offers; and suddenly understood how much closer to the great realities of life it brings a man than any actual juxtaposition.