...from the iron they take the strength, and from a hundred men's brains they absorb their wisdom. . . . Homer and Shakespeare, Hugo and Balzac — they concentrate...lesser luminaries in one singing flame that, like a giant's torch, lights up humanity's path. (P. 118) Reginald is part of a visionary company. The community...

...styles. They make themselves the vocal sun glasses of God. Homer and Shakespeare, Hugo and Balzac—they concentrate the dispersed rays of a thousand lesser...that, like a giant torch, lights up humanity's path." (117-18) Beneath this absorptive-charismatic theory of history lies a simple determinism: already "one...