He felt the sword of vengeance in his hands; to him was
intrusted the cause of Abel and of Walkham, of Ethel and of Jack. His
was the struggle of the individual soul against the same blind and cruel
fate that in the past had fashioned the ichthyosaurus and the mastodon.
"By what right," he cried, "do you assume that you are the literary
Messiah? Who appointed you? What divine power has made you the steward
of my mite and of theirs whom you have robbed?"
"I am a light-bearer. I tread the high hills of mankind.... I point the
way to the future. I light up the abysses of the past. Were not my
stature gigantic, how could I hold the torch in all men's sight? The
very souls that I tread underfoot realise, as their dying gaze follows
me, the possibilities with which the future is big.... Eternally secure,
I carry the essence of what is cosmic ... of what is divine.... I am
Homer ... Goethe ... Shakespeare.... I am an embodiment of the same
force of which Alexander, Caesar, Confucius and the Christos were also
embodiments.
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