The Fountainhead: Part 2: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

The Enright House, which looks like “rock crystal forms mounted in […] eloquent steps,” opens in June 1929 and is rented promptly to tenants who appreciate its comfort. Others talk about it disparagingly, calling it “preposterous, exhibitionist, and phony.” Toohey does not write about it in his column. Roark gets a few clients who appreciate his style, including commissions for a house and a 50-story skyscraper. Roark’s staff loves working for him, despite his lack of small talk and genialities. Instead, he responds to and recognizes their creative capacities, which gives them “an immense feeling of self-respect.”

Kent Lansing, who is a member of a corporation formed to erect a luxury hotel called the Aquitania, has decided that Roark will be the man for the job. Roark explains that he would like to be hired, but he doesn’t think he will because he cannot get along with people when they are in groups. Lansing laughs and agrees, saying that groups of people are a vacuum, “a total nothing,” which makes it harder to fight them. He promises to nevertheless try since he has “standards of what is good” and wants Roark for the job. He says “Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea,” which “presupposes the ability to think.” And despite everyone on the corporation being against Lansing, they don’t know what they want, while Lansing does. The next month, Roark signs a contract to build the hotel.

Toohey is frustrated that Roark has got the contract to build the Aquitania. Dominique comes to see him and tells him she is happy about it even though she worked hard to stop it. She says that she will still work to stop Roark getting any work, but that it’s getting harder. She wonders if she has been wrong about the world.

That evening, Toohey thinks of Hopton Stoddard, a wealthy man who atones for his many sins by turning to religion. Stoddard considers Toohey to be a man of virtue and always takes his advice. However, that summer, Toohey had tried to persuade Stoddard to build a “home for subnormal children” but Stoddard had insisted he wanted to build an “interdenominational, non-sectarian monument to religion” that he wanted named “The Hopton Stoddard Temple of the Human Spirit.”

Toohey goes to see Stoddard and agrees with him that he must build the temple, and that he must hire Roark as his architect. He tells Stoddard that although Roark will say he doesn’t believe in God, one can tell he’s “a profoundly religious man” by looking at his buildings. Since Stoddard plans to go on a religious pilgrimage around the world, Toohey tells him to give Roark the job before he leaves and to keep the plans of the building a secret until a big unveiling ceremony. He also asks Stoddard to never tell anyone that he recommended Roark for the job since he has many architect friends whose feelings might be hurt. Later, Toohey tells Dominique that he got Stoddard to give Roark the job and that Toohey is “going to make [Roark] famous.”