Yet it is now incomprehensible to you how they can suppose you to be
happy. At the same time, you are not without a certain exultation: you
cheat yourself from day to day with the thought that there are better
things to come. Quite the contrary turns out to be the case. Your
prospects, like the proverbial sacrifice of Mandrobulus, dwindle and
contract from day to day. Gradually you get some faint glimmerings of the
truth. It begins to dawn upon you at last, that those golden hopes were
neither more nor less than gilded bubbles: the vexations, on the other
hand, are realities; solid, abiding, uncompromising realities. 'And what
are these vexations?' you will perhaps exclaim; 'I see nothing so
vexatious about the matter; I know not what are the hardships and the
drudgery alluded to.' Then listen. And do not confine yourself to the
article of drudgery, but keep a sharp look-out for ignominy, for
degradation, for everything, in short, that is unworthy of a free man.

Let me remind you then, to begin with, that you are no longer free-born,
no longer a man of family. Birth, freedom, ancestry, all these you will
leave on the other side of the door, when you enter upon the fulfilment
of your servile contract; for Freedom will never bear you company in that
ignoble station. You are a slave, wince as you may at the word; and, be
assured, a slave of many masters; a downward-looking drudge, from morning
till night

serving for sorry wage.

Then again, you are a backward pupil: Servitude was not the nurse of your
childhood; you are getting on in years when she takes you in hand;
accordingly, you will do her little credit, and give little satisfaction
to your lord. Recollections of Freedom will exercise their demoralizing
influence upon you, causing you to jib at times, and you will make