"No, young man, for everybody has a master here, as we all suffer the domination of a higher power. Some are ruled by men, some by principles: and the sternest masters are not always those who order or strike with the human voice or hand."
"I confess I am ruled by principles," replied Gilbert. "They are the only masters which the mind may acknowledge without shame."
"Oh, those are your principles, are they? You seem very young to have any settled principles."
"I am young but I have studied, or rather read a little in such works as 'On the Inequality of Classes,' and 'The Social Contract;' out of them comes all my knowledge, and perhaps all my dreams."
These words kindled a flame in the hearer's eyes; he so started that he broke a flower rebellious to being packed away.
"These may not be your principles, but they are Rousseau's."
"Dry stuff for a youth," said the other; "sad matter for contemplation at twenty years of age; a dry and scentless flower for imagination in the springtide of life."
"Misfortune ripens a man unseasonably, sir."
"As you study the philosopher of Geneva, do you make a personal allusion there?"