It is not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper
classes, but they cannot endure their own; for they feel that the kind
of labour to which they are condemned is verily a degrading one, and
makes them less than men. Never had the upper classes so much sympathy
with the lower, or charity for them, as they have at this day, and yet
never were they so much hated by them: for, of old, the separation
between the noble and the poor was merely a wall built by law; now it
is a veritable difference in level of standing, a precipice between
upper and lower grounds in the field of humanity, and there is
pestilential air at the bottom of it. I know not if a day is ever to
come when the nature of right freedom will be understood, and when men
will see that to obey another man, to labour for him, yield reverence
to him or to his place, is not slavery. It is often the best kind of
liberty,--liberty from care. The man who says to one, Go, and he goeth,
and to another, Come, and he cometh,[159] has, in most cases, more sense
of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him. The movements
of the one are hindered by the burden on his shoulder; of the other, by
the bridle on his lips: there is no way by which the burden may be
lightened; but we need not suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at
it.
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