|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: step forward, towards realising that kingdom of the devil upon
earth, "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost."
Only, alas! in that evil equality of envy and hate, there is no
hindmost, and the devil takes them all alike.
And so is a period of discontent, revolution, internecine anarchy,
followed by a tyranny endured, as in old Rome, by men once free,
because tyranny will at least do for them what they were too lazy
and greedy and envious to do for themselves.
And all because they have forgot
What 'tis to be a man--to curb and spurn.
The tyrant in us: the ignobler self
|
