nation of caprice, wandering,
investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich
variety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window
to those of the butcher's back-yard, and from the galled place on your
cab-horse's back, to the brown spot in the road, from which, as the hoof
disturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz--what freedom is like
his?

149. For captivity, again, perhaps your poor watch-dog is as sorrowful
a type as you will easily find. Mine certainly is. The day is lovely,
but I must write this, and cannot go out with him. He is chained in the
yard because I do not like dogs in rooms, and the gardener does not like
dogs in gardens. He has no books,--nothing but his own weary thoughts
for company, and a group of those free flies, whom he snaps at, with
sullen ill success. Such dim hope as he may have that I may take him out
with me, will be, hour by hour, wearily disappointed; or, worse, darkened
at once into a leaden despair by an authoritative "No"--too well
understood. His fidelity only seals his fate; if he would not watch for
me, he would be sent away, and go hunting with some happier master: but
he watches, and is wise, and faithful, and miserable; and his high animal
intellect only gives him the wistful powers of wonder, and sorrow, and
desire, and affection, which embitter his captivity. Yet of the two,
would we rather be watch-dog or fly?

150. Indeed, the first point we have all to determine is not how free
we are, but what kind of creatures we are. It is of small importance to
any of us whether we get liberty; but of the greatest that we deserve it.
Whether we can win it, fate must determine; but that we will be worthy of
it we may ourselves determine; and the sorrowfullest fate of all that we
can suffer is to have it without deserving it.

151. I have hardly patience to hold my pen and go on writing, as I
remember (I would that it were possible for a few consecutive instants to
forget) the infinite follies of modern thought in this matter, centred in
the notion that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he
is likely to make of it. Folly unfathomable! unspeakable! unendurable to
look in the full face of, as the laugh of a cretin. You will send your
child, will you, into a room where the table is loaded with sweet wine
and fruit--some poisoned, some not?--you will say to him, "Choose freely,
my little child! It is so good for