your heart, that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own
exertions. Think not, neither, of any of those situations where gaudy
habiliments and sounding titles poorly disguise from the eyes of good
sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer me not by
saying, that these situations '_must be_ filled by _somebody_;' for, if
I were to admit the truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would
remain for you to show that they are conducive to happiness, the
contrary of which has been proved to me by the observation of a now
pretty long life.

15. Indeed, reason tells us, that it must be thus: for that which a man
owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is
constantly liable to take from him. He who lives upon anything except
his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals: his grand resource
is that servility in which he is always liable to be surpassed. He is in
daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice;
and he lives in a state of uncertainty and never-ceasing fear. His is
not, indeed, the dog's life, '_hunger_ and idleness;' but it is worse;
for it is 'idleness with _slavery_,' the latter being the just price of
the former. Slaves frequently are well _fed_ and well _clad_; but slaves
dare not _speak_; they dare not be suspected to _think_ differently from
their masters: hate his acts as much as they may; be he tyrant, be he
drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, they must be silent,
or, nine times out of ten, affect approbation: though possessing a
thousand times his knowledge, they must feign a conviction of his
superior understanding; though knowing that it is they who, in fact, do
all that he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to _seem as if
they thought_ any portion of the service belonged to them! Far from me
be the thought, that any youth who shall read this page would not rather
perish than submit to live in a state like this! Such a state is fit