“’The day of slavery
Takes half our manly worth away.’[2]

“As, then (if what I have heard is credible), the cages in which those
pigmies commonly called dwarfs are reared not only stop the growth of
the imprisoned creature, but absolutely make him smaller by compressing
every part of his body, so all despotism, however equitable, may be
defined as a cage of the soul and a general prison.”

[Footnote 2: _Od._ xvii. 322.]

6
My answer was as follows: “My dear friend, it is so easy, and so
characteristic of human nature, always to find fault with the
present.[3] Consider, now, whether the corruption of genius is to be
attributed, not to a world-wide peace,[4] but rather to the war within
us which knows no limit, which engages all our desires, yes, and still
further to the bad passions which lay siege to us to-day, and make utter
havoc and spoil of our lives. Are we not enslaved, nay, are not our
careers completely shipwrecked, by love of gain, that fever which rages
unappeased in us all, and love of pleasure?--one the most debasing, the
other the most ignoble of the mind’s diseases.

[Footnote 3: Comp. Byron, “The good old times,--all times when old
are good.”]

[Footnote 4: A euphemism for “a world-wide tyranny.”]

7
“When I consider it I can find no means by which we, who hold in such