e and faded with her decay?
Liberty, it is said, is all-powerful to feed the aspirations of high
intellects, to hold out hope, and keep alive the flame of mutual rivalry
and ambitious struggle for the highest place.

3
"Moreover, the prizes which are offered in every free state keep the
spirits of her foremost orators whetted by perpetual exercise;[1] they
are, as it were, ignited by friction, and naturally blaze forth freely
because they are surrounded by freedom. But we of to-day," he continued,
"seem to have learnt in our childhood the lessons of a benignant
despotism, to have been cradled in her habits and customs from the time
when our minds were still tender, and never to have tasted the fairest
and most fruitful fountain of eloquence, I mean liberty. Hence we
develop nothing but a fine genius for flattery.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Pericles in Thuc. ii., +athla gar hois keitai
aretes megista tois de kai andres arista politeuousin+.]

4
"This is the reason why, though all other faculties are consistent with
the servile condition, no slave ever became an orator; because in him
there is a dumb spirit which will not be kept down: his soul is chained:
he is like one who has learnt to be ever expecting a blow. For, as Homer
says--

5
"'The day of slavery
Takes half our manly worth away.'[2]

"As, then (if what I have heard is credible), the cages in which those
pigmies commonly called dwarfs are reared not only stop the growth of
the imprisoned creature, but absolutely make him smaller by compressing
every part of his body, so all despotism, however equitable, may be
defined as a cage of the soul and a general prison."

[Footnote 2: _Od._ xvii. 322.]

6
My answer was as follows: "My dear friend, it is so easy, and so
characteristic of human nature, always to find fault with the
present.[3] Consider, now, whether the corruption of genius is to be
attributed, not to a world-wide peace,[4] but rather to the war within
us which knows no limit, which engages all our desires, yes, and still
further to the bad passions which lay siege to us to-day, and make utter
havoc and spoil of our lives. Are we not enslaved, nay, are not our
careers completely shipwrecked, by love of gain, that fever which rages
unappeased in us all, and love of pleasure?--one the most debasing, the
other the most ignoble of the mind's diseases.

[Footnote 3: Comp. Byron, "The good old times,--all times when old