He fancied, for he really knew nothing, that it was the light of Europe, not its glare that he wanted, and he wanted it chiefly on his material, so as to see it more and more objectively.

It was his power of detachment from this that had enabled him to do his sketches in the paper with such charm as to lure a cash proposition from a publisher when he put them together for a book, but he believed that his business faculty had much to do with his success; and he was as proud of that as of the book itself.

Perhaps he was not so very proud of the book; he was at least not vain of it; he could, detach himself from his art as well as his material.
Like all literary temperaments he was of a certain hardness, in spite of the susceptibilities that could be used to give coloring to his work.
He knew this well enough, but he believed that there were depths of unprofessional tenderness in his nature.

He was good to his mother, and he sent her money, and wrote to her in the little Indiana town where he had left her when he came to Chicago.

After he got that invitation from the Bird of Prey, he explored his heart for some affection that he had not felt for him before, and he found a wish that his employer should not know it was he who had invented that nickname for him.