merely in the hope that pleasure may come of it, this surely is carrying
folly to the height of absurdity. And men do it with their eyes open. The
hardships, they know, are certain, unmistakable, inevitable. As to the
pleasure, that vague, hypothetic pleasure, they have never had it in all
these years, and in all reasonable probability they never will. The
comrades of Odysseus forgot all else in the Lotus: but it was while they
were tasting its sweets. They esteemed lightly of Honour: but it was in
the immediate presence of Pleasure. In men so occupied, such forgetfulness
was not wholly unnatural. But to dwell a prisoner, with Famine for
company, to watch one's neighbour fattening on the Lotus, and keeping it
all to himself, and to forget Honour and Virtue in the bare prospect of a
possible mouthful,--by Heaven, it is too absurd, and calls in good truth
for Homeric scourgings.

Such, as nearly as I can describe them, are men's motives for taking
service with the rich, for handing themselves over bodily, to be used as
their employers think fit. There is one class, however, of which I ought
perhaps to make mention--those whose vanity is gratified by the mere fact
of being seen in the company of well-born and well-dressed men. For there
are those who consider this a distinguished privilege; though for my own
part I would not give a fig to enjoy and to be seen enjoying the company
of the King of Persia, if I was to get nothing by it.

And now, since we understand what it is that these men would be at, let
us mentally review their whole career;--the difficulties that beset the
applicant before he gains acceptance; his condition when he is duly
installed in his office; and the closing scene of his life's drama. You
may perhaps suppose that his situation, whatever its drawbacks, is at
least attainable without much trouble; that you have but to will it, and
the thing is done in a trice. Far from it. Much tramping about is in