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- 8111
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8038
- text
- to-morrow transmute her bond into free; though lawlessness may
transform them into brutes. Freedom is the name for a thing that is
_not_ freedom; this, a lesson never learned in an hour or an age. By
some tribes it will never be learned.
“Yet, if it please you, there may be such a thing as being free under
Caesar. Ages ago, there were as many vital freemen, as breathe vital
air to-day.
“Names make not distinctions; some despots rule without swaying
scepters. Though King Bello’s palace was not put together by yoked men;
your federal temple of freedom, sovereign-kings! was the handiwork of
slaves.
“It is not gildings, and gold maces, and crown jewels alone, that make
a people servile. There is much bowing and cringing among you
yourselves, sovereign-kings! Poverty is abased before riches, all Mardi
over; any where, it is hard to be a debtor; any where, the wise will
lord it over fools; every where, suffering is found.
“Thus, freedom is more social than political. And its real felicity is
not to be shared. _That_ is of a man’s own individual getting and
holding. It is not, who rules the state, but who rules me. Better be
secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of
monarchs, though oneself be of the number.
“But superstitious notions you harbor, sovereign kings! Did you visit
Dominora, you would not be marched straight into a dungeon. And though
you would behold sundry sights displeasing, you would start to inhale
such liberal breezes; and hear crowds boasting of their privileges; as
you, of yours. Nor has the wine of Dominora, a monarchical flavor.
“Now, though far and wide, to keep equal pace with the times, great
reforms, of a verity, be needed; nowhere are bloody revolutions
required. Though it be the most certain of remedies, no prudent invalid
opens his veins, to let out his disease with his life. And though all
evils may be assuaged; all evils can not be done away. For evil is the
chronic malady of the universe; and checked in one place, breaks forth
in another.
“Of late, on this head, some wild dreams have departed.
“There are many, who erewhile believed that the age of pikes and
javelins was passed; that after a heady and blustering youth, old Mardi
was at last settling down into a serene old age; and that the Indian
summer, first discovered in your land, sovereign kings! was the hazy
vapor emitted from its tranquil pipe. But it has not so proved. Mardi’s
peaces are but truces. Long absent, at last the red comets have
returned. And return they must, though their periods be ages. And
should Mardi endure till mountain melt into mountain, and all the isles
form one table-land; yet, would it but expand the old battle-plain.
“Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in
the shambles, men are being murdered to-day. Could time be reversed,
and the future change places with the past, the past would cry out
against us, and our future, full as loudly, as we against the ages
foregone. All the Ages are his children, calling each other names.
“Hark ye, sovereign-kings! cheer not on the yelping pack too furiously:
Hunters have been torn by their hounds. Be advised; wash your hands.
Hold aloof. Oro has poured out an ocean for an everlasting barrier
between you and the worst folly which other republics have perpetrated.
That barrier hold sacred. And swear never to cross over to Porpheero,
by manifesto or army, unless you traverse dry land.
“And be not too grasping, nearer home. It is not freedom to filch.
Expand not your area too widely, now. Seek you proselytes? Neighboring
nations may be free, without coming under your banner. And if you can
not lay your ambition, know this: that it is best served, by waiting
events.
“Time, but Time only, may enable you to cross the equator; and give you
the Arctic Circles for your boundaries.”
- title
- Chunk 5