the egotist becomes a personage

[bagonya]

"Long after midnight the towers and spires of Princeton were visible - with here and there a late-burning light - and suddenly out of the clear darkness the sound of bells.  As an endless dream it went on: the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation, the chosen youth from the muddled, unchastened world, still fed romantically on the mistakes and half-forgotten dreams of dead statesmen and poets.  Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a reverie of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty grey turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken..."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise