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of it and did not crusade for free love. The subject of sex bored him. There

was, he felt, too much fuss made over the damn thing; it was of no importance;

there were too many weightier problems in the world.

The years passed, with each busy day of his life like a small, neat coin dropped

patiently into a gigantic slot machine, without a glance at the combination of

symbols, without return. Gradually, one of his many activities began to stand

out among the others: he became known as an eminent critic of architecture. He

wrote about buildings for three successive magazines that limped on noisily for

a few years and failed, one after the other: New Voices, New Pathways, New

Horizons. The fourth, New Frontiers, survived. Ellsworth Toohey was the only

thing salvaged from the successive wrecks. Architectural criticism seemed to be

a neglected field of endeavor; few people bothered to write about buildings,

fewer to read. Toohey acquired a reputation and an unofficial monopoly. The

better magazines began calling upon him whenever they needed anything connected

with architecture.

In the year 1921 a small change occurred in Toohey’s private life; his niece

Catherine Halsey, the daughter of his sister Helen, came to live with him. His

father had long since died, and Aunt Adeline had vanished into the obscure

poverty of some small town; at the death of Catherine’s parents there was no one

else to take care of her. Toohey had not intended to keep her in his own home.

But when she stepped off the train in New York, her plain little face looked

beautiful for a moment, as if the future were opening before her and its glow

were already upon her forehead, as if she were eager and proud and ready to meet

it. It was one of those rare moments when the humblest person knows suddenly

what it means to feel as the center of the universe, and is made beautiful by

the knowledge, and the world--in the eyes of witnesses--looks like a better

place for having such a center. Ellsworth Toohey saw this--and decided that

Catherine would remain with him.

In the year 1925 came Sermons in Stone--and fame.

Ellsworth Toohey became a fashion. Intellectual hostesses fought over him. Some

people disliked him and laughed at him. But there was little satisfaction in

laughing at Ellsworth Toohey, because he was always first to make the most

outrageous remarks about himself. Once, at a party, a smug, boorish businessman

listened to Toohey’s earnest social theories for a while and said complacently:

"Well, I wouldn’t know much about all that intellectual stuff. I play the stock

market."

"I," said Toohey, "play the stock market of the spirit. And I sell short."

The most important consequence of Sermons in Stone was Toohey’s contract to

write a daily column for Gail Wynand’s New York Banner.

The contract came as a surprise to the followers of both sides involved, and, at

first, it made everybody angry. Toohey had referred to Wynand frequently and not

respectfully; the Wynand papers had called Toohey every name fit to print. But

the Wynand papers had no policy, save that of reflecting the greatest prejudices

of the greatest number, and this made for an erratic direction, but a

recognizable direction, nevertheless: toward the inconsistent, the

irresponsible, the trite and the maudlin. The Wynand papers stood against

Privilege and for the Common Man, but in a respectable manner that could shock

nobody; they exposed monopolies, when they wished; they supported strikes, when

they wished, and vice versa. They denounced Wall Street and they denounced

socialism and they hollered for clean movies, all with the same gusto. They were

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strident and blatant--and, in essence, lifelessly mild. Ellsworth Toohey was a

phenomenon much too extreme to fit behind the front page of the Banner.

But the staff of the Banner was as unfastidious as its policy. It included

everybody who could please the public or any large section thereof. It was said:

"Gail Wynand is not a pig. He’ll eat anything." Ellsworth Toohey was a great

success and the public was suddenly interested in architecture; the Banner had

no authority on architecture; the Banner would get Ellsworth Toohey. It was a

simple syllogism.

Thus "One Small Voice" came into existence.

The Banner explained its appearance by announcing: "On Monday the Banner will

present to you a new friend--ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY--whose scintillating book

Sermons in Stone you have all read and loved. The name of Mr. Toohey stands for

the great profession of architecture. He will help you to understand everything

you want to know about the wonders of modern building. Watch for ’ONE SMALL

VOICE’ on Monday. To appear exclusively in the Banner in New York City." The

rest of what Mr. Toohey stood for was ignored.

Ellsworth Toohey made no announcement or explanation to anyone. He disregarded

the friends who cried that he had sold himself. He simply went to work. He

devoted "One Small Voice" to architecture--once a month. The rest of the time it

was the voice of Ellsworth Toohey saying what he wished said--to syndicated

millions.

Toohey was the only Wynand employee who had a contract permitting him to write

anything he pleased. He had insisted upon it. It was considered a great victory,

by everybody except Ellsworth Toohey. He realized that it could mean one of two

things: either Wynand had surrendered respectfully to the prestige of his

name--or Wynand considered him too contemptible to be worth restraining.

"One Small Voice" never seemed to say anything dangerously revolutionary, and

seldom anything political. It merely preached sentiments with which most people

felt in agreement: unselfishness, brotherhood, equality. "I’d rather be kind

than right."

"Mercy is superior to justice, the shallow-hearted to the contrary

notwithstanding."

"Speaking anatomically--and perhaps otherwise--the heart is our most valuable

organ. The brain is a superstition."

"In spiritual matters there is a simple, infallible test: everything that

proceeds from the ego is evil; everything that proceeds from love for others is

good."

"Service is the only badge of nobility. I see nothing offensive in the

conception of fertilizer as the highest symbol of man’s destiny: it is

fertilizer that produces wheat and roses."

"The worst folk song is superior to the best symphony."

"A man braver than his brothers insults them by implication. Let us aspire to no

virtue which cannot be shared."

"I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would

feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother."

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"Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a

disease."

"We are all brothers under the skin--and I, for one, would be willing to skin

humanity to prove it."

In the offices of the Banner Ellsworth Toohey was treated respectfully and left

alone. It was whispered that Gail Wynand did not like him--because Wynand was

always polite to him. Alvah Scarret unbent to the point of cordiality, but kept

a wary distance. There was a silent, watchful equilibrium between Toohey and

Scarret: they understood each other.

Toohey made no attempt to approach Wynand in any way. Toohey seemed indifferent

to all the men who counted on the Banner. He concentrated on the others,

instead.

He organized a club of Wynand employees. It was not a labor union; it was just a

club. It met once a month in the library of the Banner. It did not concern

itself with wages, hours or working conditions; it had no concrete program at

all. People got acquainted, talked, and listened to speeches. Ellsworth Toohey

made most of the speeches. He spoke about new horizons and the press as the

voice of the masses. Gail Wynand appeared at a meeting once, entering

unexpectedly in the middle of a session. Toohey smiled and invited him to join

the club, declaring that he was eligible. Wynand did not join. He sat listening

for half an hour, yawned, got up, and left before the meeting was over.

Alvah Scarret appreciated the fact that Toohey did not try to reach into his

field, into the important matters of policy. As a kind of return courtesy,

Scarret let Toohey recommend new employees, when there was a vacancy to fill,

particularly if the position was not an important one; as a rule, Scarret did

not care, while Toohey always cared, even when it was only the post of copy boy.

Toohey’s selections got the jobs. Most of them were young, brash, competent,

shifty-eyed and shook hands limply. They had other things in common, but these

were not so apparent.

There were several monthly meetings which Toohey attended regularly; the

meetings of: the Council of American Builders, the Council of American Writers,

the Council of American Artists. He had organized them all.

Lois Cook was chairman of the Council of American Writers. It met in the drawing

room of her home on the Bowery. She was the only famous member. The rest

included a woman who never used capitals in her books, and a man who never used

commas; a youth who had written a thousand-page novel without a single letter o,

and another who wrote poems that neither rhymed nor scanned; a man with a beard

who was sophisticated and proved it by using every unprintable four-letter word

in every ten pages of his manuscript; a woman who imitated Lois Cook, except

that her style was less clear; when asked for explanations she stated that this

was the way life sounded to her, when broken by the prism of her

subconscious--"You know what a prism does to a ray of light, don’t you?" she

said. There was also a fierce young man known simply as Ike the Genius, though

nobody knew just what he had done, except that he talked about loving all of

life. The Council signed a declaration which stated that writers were servants

of the proletariat--but the statement did not sound as simple as that; it was

more involved and much longer. The declaration was sent to every newspaper in

the country. It was never published anywhere, except on page 32 of New

Frontiers. The Council of American Artists had, as chairman, a cadaverous youth

who painted what he saw in his nightly dreams. There was a boy who used no

canvas, but did something with bird cages and metronomes, and another who

discovered a new technique of painting: he blackened a sheet of paper and then

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painted with a rubber eraser. There was a stout middle-aged lady who drew

subconsciously, claiming that she never looked at her hand and had no idea of

what the hand was doing; her hand, she said, was guided by the spirit of the

departed lover whom she had never met on earth. Here they did not talk so much

about the proletariat, but merely rebelled against the tyranny of reality and of

the objective.

A few friends pointed out to Ellsworth Toohey that he seemed guilty of

inconsistency; he was so deeply opposed to individualism, they said, and here

were all these writers and artists of his, and every one of them was a rabid

individualist. "Do you really think so?" said Toohey, smiling blandly.

Nobody took these Councils seriously. People talked about them, because they

thought it made good conversation; it was such a huge joke, they said, certainly

there was no harm in any of it. "Do you really think so?" said Toohey.

Ellsworth Toohey was now forty-one years old. He lived in a distinguished

apartment that seemed modest when compared to the size of the income he could

have commanded if he wished. He liked to apply the adjective "conservative" to

himself in one respect only: in his conservative good taste for clothes. No one

had ever seen him lose his temper. His manner was immutable; it was the same in

a drawing room, at a labor meeting, on a lecture platform, in the bathroom or

during sexual intercourse: cool, self-possessed, amused, faintly patronizing.

People admired his sense of humor. He was, they said, a man who could laugh at

himself. "I’m a dangerous person. Somebody ought to warn you against me," he

said to people, in the tone of uttering the most preposterous thing in the

world.

Of all the many titles bestowed upon him, he preferred one: Ellsworth Toohey,

the Humanitarian.

10.

THE ENRIGHT HOUSE was opened in June of 1929.

There was no formal ceremony. But Roger Enright wanted to mark the moment for

his own satisfaction. He invited a few people he liked and he unlocked the great

glass entrance door, throwing it open to the sun-filled air. Some press

photographers had arrived, because the story concerned Roger Enright and because

Roger Enright did not want to have them there. He ignored them. He stood in the

middle of the street, looking at the building, then he walked through the lobby,

stopping short without reason and resuming his pacing. He said nothing. He

frowned fiercely, as if he were about to scream with rage. His friends knew that

Roger Enright was happy.

The building stood on the shore of the East River, a structure rapt as raised

arms. The rock crystal forms mounted in such eloquent steps that the building

did not seem stationary, but moving upward in a continuous flow--until one

realized that it was only the movement of one’s glance and that one’s glance was

forced to move in that particular rhythm. The walls of pale gray limestone

looked silver against the sky, with the clean, dulled luster of metal, but a

metal that had become a warm, living substance, carved by the most cutting of

all instruments--a purposeful human will. It made the house alive in a strange,

personal way of its own, so that in the minds of spectators five words ran

dimly, without object or clear connection: "...in His image and likeness..."

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A young photographer from the Banner noticed Howard Roark standing alone across

the street, at the parapet of the river. He was leaning back, his hands closed