And servitude (it has been well said) though
it be even righteous, is the cage of the soul and a public
prison-house.'
But I answered him thus.--'It is easy, my good sir, and
characteristic of human nature, to gird at the age in which
one lives. Yet consider whether it may not be true that it is
less the world's peace that ruins noble nature than this war
illimitable which holds our aspirations in its fist, and
occupies our age with passions as with troops that utterly
plunder and harry it. The love of money and the love of
pleasure enslave us, or rather, as one may say, drown us
body and soul in their depths. For vast and unchecked
wealth marches with lust of pleasure for comrade, and when
one opens the gate of house or city, the other at once enters
and abides. And in time these two build nests in the hearts
of men, and quickly rear a progeny only too legitimate: and
the ruin within the man is gradually consummated as the
sublimities of his soul wither away and fade, and in ecstatic
contemplation of our mortal parts we omit to exalt, and
come to neglect in nonchalance, that within us which is
immortal.
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