Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great main dish of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
Every crime is punished,
Every virtue rewarded,
Every wrong redressed,
In silence and certainty.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
What's up with the epigraph?
This text sounds like something from a political candidate's stump speech, but it actually comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Compensation." This is how Emerson views the universe, as a utopia of sorts. Dan McBride, in Paladin Prophecy, teaches a course on Emerson, so perhaps he, too, wants to guide the students of the Center to building their own utopia.
Now, how will they go about doing that? That's the question.