power to use them at will. This ultimate stage of power and freedom has,
perhaps, never been attained by any worker under the conditions of this
present life; but in the exact degree in which the worker approaches this
ideal does he secure his own freedom. The untrained man, whose sole
resource is some kind of unskilled labour, is in bondage to the time and
place in which and at which he finds himself, and to the opportunities and
rewards close at hand; the trained man has the freedom of the whole world
of work. Michael Angelo receives commissions from princes and popes;
Velasquez paints with kings looking over his shoulder; Tesla can choose
the place where he will work; Mr. Gladstone would have found fame and
fortune at the end of almost any road he chose to take. In the case of
each of these great workers inward power was matured and harmonised by
outward work, and through work each achieved freedom.

No man is free until he can dispose of himself; until he is sought after
instead of seeking; until, in the noblest sense of the words, he commands
his own price in the world. There are men in every generation who push
this self-development and self-mastery so far, and who obtain such a large
degree of freedom in consequence, that the keys of all doors are open to
them. We call such men masters, not to suggest subjection to them, but as
an instinctive recognition of the fact that they have secured emancipation
from the limitations from which most men never escape. In a world given
over to apprenticeship these heroic spirits have attained the degree of
mastership. They have not been carried to commanding positions by happy
tides of favourable circumstance; they have not stumbled into greatness;
they have attained what they have secured and they hold it by virtue of
superior intelligence, skill, and power. They possess more freedom than
their fellows because they have worked with finer insight, with steadier
persistence, and with more passionate enthusiasm. They are masters because
they are free; but their freedom was bought with a great price.