palpitating. It was a bird resting upon a bough. The bough was tossed and
flung about by a tempest; and a chasm yawned below; but the bough held, and
the bird was master of its wings, and sang.

The name of the bough was Faith.

* * * * *

April 27th.

I have read a great deal of historical romance, and a great deal of local
color fiction, and a great deal of original character-drawing--and I have
wished to get away from these things.

There is no local color, and no character-drawing, in The Captive. You do
not know the name of the hero; you do not know how old he is, or of what
rank he is, at what period or in what land he lives. He is described but
once. He is "A Man."

My philosophy is a philosophy of will. All virtue that I know is
conditioned upon freedom. The object of all thinking and doing, as I see
it, is to set men free.

There is the tyranny of kings--the tyranny of force; there is the tyranny
of priests--the tyranny of ignorance; there is the tyranny of society--the
tyranny of selfishness and indolence; and above all, and including all, and
causing all--there is the tyranny of self--the tyranny of sin, the tyranny
of the body. So it is that I see the world.

So it is that I see history; I can see nothing else in history. The tyranny