"You know no better, and cannot do otherwise. You mean to perform your duty, and to reach that which is good and holy.
"How would you possibly find your King? And how would you maintain order—holy order—without these two people; without him whom you happen to have named your king, as you might have named some foundling?
"But notwithstanding you have felt, every one of you, that I spoke the truth just now, you yet will continue this unblushing lie because you dare not do otherwise, and because you know no other way.
"But bethink yourselves, unhappy beings! Cowardice and weakness shall not excuse you, if, knowing the lie, you adhere to it, and, seeing the truth, you accept it not.
"What you endure is indeed terrible. I esteem you still more worthy of pity than the neglected people out of whose misery you have extracted your splendor.
"You have burdened this poor pair of human beings with royalty—a power befitting only the strongest and the wisest among men.
"Thus do you crush their weak spirits under a weight which only the strongest can bear. You desecrate the name of King—you blaspheme against God, whose grace is not subject to your command.
"You dazzle your bewildered people with a blinding glare, as if they truly had a king. But it is an idle puppet-show, to comply with a hollow peace and a defective method. There is none among you who has the wisdom and the might to lead this people into righteousness; and yet you bear all the responsibility for their confusion, their ignorance, their crudeness, and their misery.
"And they are the least guilty, because, in working for your luxury, they miss the opportunity to learn.
"But you pride yourselves upon your knowledge and your refinement. You know how the industrious lack food, and the rich have the privilege of idleness. You know how an over-abundance flows to you from the deprivations of the neglected. You know the injustice of all this, and yet permit it. And on these two unfortunates you impose the responsibility and the lie.