he opens it and reads it.  In a moment he is changed, he turns pale and falls into a swoon.  When he comes to himself he weeps, laments, and groans, he tears his hair, and his shrieks re-echo through the air.  You would say he was in convulsions.  Fool, what harm has this bit of paper done you?  What limb has it torn away?  What crime has it made you commit?  What change has it wrought in you to reduce you to this state of misery?

Had the letter miscarried, had some kindly hand thrown it into the fire, it strikes me that the fate of this mortal, at once happy and unhappy, would have offered us a strange problem.  His misfortunes, you say, were real enough.  Granted; but he did not feel them.  What of that?  His happiness was imaginary.  I admit it; health, wealth, a contented spirit, are mere dreams.  We no longer live in our own place, we live outside it.  What does it profit us to live in such fear of death, when all that makes life worth living is our own?

Oh, man! live your own life and you will no longer be wretched.  Keep to your appointed place in the order of nature and nothing can tear you from it.  Do not kick against the stern law of necessity, nor waste in vain resistance the strength bestowed on you by heaven, not to prolong or extend your existence, but to preserve it so far and so long as heaven pleases.  Your freedom and your power extend as far and no further than your natural strength; anything more is but slavery, deceit, and trickery.  Power itself is servile when it depends upon public opinion; for you are dependent on the prejudices of others when you rule them by means of those prejudices.  To lead them as you will, they must be led as they will.  They have only to change their way of thinking and you are forced to change your course of action.  Those who approach you need only contrive to sway the opinions of those you rule, or of the favourite by whom you are ruled, or those of your own family or theirs.  Had you the genius of Themistocles, [Footnote:  “You see that little boy,” said Themistocles to his friends, “the fate of Greece is in his hands, for he rules his mother and his mother rules me, I rule the Athenians and the Athenians rule the Greeks.”  What petty creatures we should often find controlling great empires if we traced the course of power from the prince to those who secretly put that power in motion.] viziers, courtiers, priests, soldiers, servants, babblers, the very children themselves, would lead you like a child in the midst of your legions.  Whatever you do, your actual authority can never extend beyond your own powers.  As soon as you are obliged to see with another’s eyes you must will what he wills.  You say with pride, “My people are my subjects.”  Granted, but what are you?  The subject of your ministers.  And your ministers, what are they?  The subjects of their clerks, their mistresses, the servants of their servants.  Grasp all, usurp all, and then pour out your silver with both hands; set up your batteries, raise the gallows and the wheel; make laws, issue proclamations, multiply your spies, your soldiers, your hangmen, your prisons, and your chains.  Poor little men, what good does it do you?  You will be no better served, you will be none the less robbed and deceived, you will be no nearer absolute power.  You will say continually, “It is our will,” and you will continually do the will of others.