Spinrobin grows up with a vivid imagination and a belief that names and sounds possess the power to shape reality, and as he becomes dissatisfied with ordinary life he develops a strong desire to live a more meaningful and extraordinary existence, which leads him to respond to a strange advertisement by the retired clergyman Philip Skale and travel to his secluded home, where he meets Skale his family and Miriam and senses an atmosphere that suggests a purpose beyond mere employment, and as he settles into this environment he begins to suspect that sound and language may hold deeper connections to reality and the human soul than he had ever imagined.
