and open ways to greatness, yet there are narrow, thorny, and
little-trodden paths, too, through which some men find a passage by
virtuous industry." I grant, sometimes they may; but then that
industry must be such as cannot consist with liberty, though it may
with honesty.

Thou art careful, frugal, painful. We commend a servant so, but not
a friend.

Well, then, we must acknowledge the toil and drudgery which we are
forced to endure in this assent, but we are epicures and lords when
once we are gotten up into the high places. This is but a short
apprenticeship, after which we are made free of a royal company. If
we fall in love with any beauteous woman, we must be content that
they should be our mistresses whilst we woo them. As soon as we are
wedded and enjoy, 'tis we shall be the masters.

I am willing to stick to this similitude in the case of greatness:
we enter into the bonds of it, like those of matrimony; we are
bewitched with the outward and painted beauty, and take it for
better or worse before we know its true nature and interior
inconveniences. "A great fortune," says Seneca, "is a great
servitude." But many are of that opinion which Brutus imputes (I
hope untruly) even to that patron of liberty, his friend Cicero.
"We fear," says he to Atticus, "death, and banishment, and poverty,
a great deal too much. Cicero, I am afraid, thinks these to be the
worst of evils, and if he have but some persons from whom he can
obtain what he has a mind to, and others who will flatter and
worship him, seems to be well enough contented with an honourable
servitude, if anything, indeed, ought to be called honourable in so