* * *

The man who puts chains on another's limbs is only one shade worse than
he who puts fetters on another's free thoughts and on another's free
conscience.

* * *

One fetter of tradition loosened, one web of superstition broken, one
ray of light let in on darkness, one principle of liberty secured, are
worth the living for, he mused. Fame!--it is the flower of a day, that
dies when the next sun rises. But to do something, however little, to
free men from their chains, to aid something, however faintly, the
rights of reason and of truth, to be unvanquished through all and
against all, these may bring one nearer the pure ambitions of youth.

Happiness dies as age comes to us; it sets for ever, with the suns of
early years: yet perhaps we may keep a higher thing beside which it
holds but a brief loyalty, if to ourselves we can rest true, if for the
liberty of the world we can do anything.

* * *

Do not believe that happiness makes us selfish; it is a treason to the
sweetest gift of life. It is when it has deserted us that it grows hard
to keep all the better things in us from dying in the blight.

* * *

"Coleridge cried, 'O God, how glorious it is to live!' Renan asks, 'O
God, when will it be worth while to live?' In nature we echo the poet;
in the world we echo the thinker."

* * *

"Yet you are greater than you were then," he said, slowly. "I know it,--I
who am but a wine-cup rioter and love nothing but my summer-day fooling.
You are greater; but the harvest you sow will only be reaped over your
grave."

"I should be content could I believe it would be reaped then."

"Be content then. You may be so."

"God knows! Do you not think Marsy and Delisle de Sales and Linguet
believed, as they suffered in their dungeons for mere truth of speech,
that the remembrance of future generations would solace them? Bichat
gave himself to premature death for science' sake; does the world once
in a year speak his name? Yet how near those men are to us, to be
forgotten! A century, and history will scarce chronicle them."

"Then why give the wealth of your intellect to men?"

"Are there not higher things than present reward and the mere talk of
tongues? The _monstrari digito_ were scarce a lofty goal. We may love
Truth and strive to serve her, disregarding what she brings us. Those
who need a bribe from her are not her true beli