"From boyhood, all his passion had been for knowledge. He had ached to hold within him the compass of all lore and learning, to read the book of Nature and so comprehend the mind of its Creator, to be that more-than-mortal man, that Magister Mirabilis who would synthesize and reveal all, and so raise Mankind from the muck of superstition, disease, and ignorance, easing human misery and undoing the curse of toil, filling the nations with clean white cities and joining all in a single commonwealth under one king and that king Reason itself. Too late, he saw his ambitions for the folly they were. His youth and money were gone and he had nothing to show for them. Nothing but books, books, books ... "God damn you," he whispered."