music, beholder of all beauty, doer of all righteousness. That is the truth
which I have brought out of my deepest brooding.

So long as your happiness is in anything about yourself--your wealth, or
your fame, or your life--you are not free. So long as your happiness is in
houses and lands, in sons and in daughters, you are not free. You give one
atom of your soul to these things at your own peril; for when your hour
comes you tear them from you, though they be as your eyes; and by your
_will_ you save your soul alive.

Therefore I write The Captive. I put aside childish things--I grip my hands
upon naked Reality.

* * * * *

There are nine characters in The Captive: a tyrant, two slaves, six guests,
and a man. There are two scenes--a dungeon, and a banquet-hall.

A tyrant: I understand by a tyrant a man whose happiness is the unhappiness
of others. I read of the discoverers of Mexico, and how they found a
pyramid of human skulls, raised as a monument; that has been to me, ever
since, the type of tyranny. The forms of tyranny vary through the ages, but
the principle is always the same; a tyrant is a man who is made great by
the toil and sorrow of others.

The slave also remains the same through all time; and likewise the guest.
The guest is the man who takes the world as he finds it, and likes a good
dinner. The population of society is made up of tyrants, slaves, and
guests.