born to
be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the
strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey
a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not
hear of men being forced to have this way or that by masses of men. What
sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to
me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my
money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot
help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to
snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the
machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that,
when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain
inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and
spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance,
overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to
its nature, it dies; and so a man.

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners
in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the
doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time
to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps
returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me
by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and a clever man." When the
door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed
matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at
least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest
apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from,
and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my
turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course;
and, as the world goes, I believe he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse
me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As near as I could discover,
he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe
there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever
man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on,
and would have to wait as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and
contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was
well treated.

He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one