She didn’t mean to destroy the world, but she did. True, when she spoke her Deplorable Word, the sky did not come crashing down. The room did not disintegrate. The large crocodiles standing behind her didn’t even react. But if what she said were true — and it literally cannot be true — all things would have come unwoven, strand by insubstantial strand.

Isn’t it usually the case that a new style emerges precisely among a relatively small number of artists, writers, musicians, athletes, or thinkers? It is from these small unities that ingredients of a larger unity grow and flower. What we call culture is in fact that the product of many small “gardens.”