glimpse of sunlight. That was the burden of your complaint--you were
stifled in deep darkness. We saw you pale and careworn, your fingers
hooked with coin-counting, and heard how you would like to run away,
if only you could get the chance. It was monstrous, then, that you
should be kept in a bronze or iron chamber, like a Danae condemned to
virginity, and brought up by those stern unscrupulous tutors,
Interest, Debit and Credit.

They were perfectly ridiculous, you know, loving you to distraction,
but not daring to enjoy you when they might; you were in their power,
yet they could not give the reins to their passion; they kept awake
watching you with their eyes glued to bolt and seal; the enjoyment
that satisfied them was not to enjoy you themselves, but to prevent
others' enjoying you--true dogs in the manger. Yes, and then how
absurd it was that they should scrape and hoard, and end by being
jealous of their own selves! Ah, if they could but see that rascally
slave--steward--trainer--sneaking in bent on carouse! little enough
_he_ troubles his head about the luckless unamiable owner at his
nightly accounts by a dim little half-fed lamp. How, pray, do you
reconcile your old strictures of this sort with your contrary
denunciation of Timon?

_Pl_. Oh, if you consider the thing candidly, you will find both
attitudes reasonable. It is clear enough that Timon's utter negligence
comes from slackness, and not from any consideration for me. As for
the other sort, who keep me shut up in the obscurity of strong-boxes,
intent on making me heavy and fat and unwieldy, never touching me
themselves, and never letting me see the light, lest some one else
should catch sight of me, I always thought of them as fools and
tyrants; what harm had I done that they should let me rot in close