“So you shall,” said the man; “your liberty will be that of obtaining your just position in the wall, and of maintaining it undisturbedly.”
“Bah! what stupid, sneaking notions you have of liberty, surely! I tell you again that I must have space to expand and expatiate in. Do you think that I can stoop to fill the office of a mere wedge?”
“You tire out my patience, friend,” said the mason: “there is no use in arguing the matter further. I see I cannot get you to take up your lodging in the wall: I see I must throw you on the earth again.”
“Very well; be it so,” returned the Stone: “liberty before all things! Pitch me to a respectable distance from the other stones, that I may feel myself unshackled and independent. I have the same right to be a free-stone that you have to be a free-mason.”
“There, then,” said the mason, and with the words he cast the Stone from him into the middle of the highway.
The Stone was now in the full enjoyment of its darling liberty. Exceedingly did it congratulate itself. For a time also everything went well with it. The summer was a mild one; the skies were bright, and the foot of the passenger was continually transferring it to a new locality, and showing it daily more and more of the ways of the world. But, alas! the summer could not last for ever: autumn came, and brought with it clouds of dust and showers of yellow leaves; and when the wind-gusts had subsided, there fell on the earth heavy torrents of rain; and the highway was covered with mire, and the measure of the isolated stone was forthwith taken for a surtout of mud; and there it lay, fallen from its high estate, and completely confounded by the passing eye with the vilest of the rubbish in its vicinity.
But this was not the worst: in the course of a few weeks, the rains continuing still to fall, and the mire to accumulate, the earth gave way under it, and it became, as it were, imbedded in a hole produced by the force of its own pressure on the soft soil, till at last no part of it remained above ground except the upper surface. Unfortunately, too, there was no longer a possibility of retracing its steps, for the wall was now erected and the mason was far away. Nothing remained for it but to sink deeplier and deeplier into the earth, until not a vestige of it remained visible to the eye. Alas! for our poor Stone! Oh, Liberty! Oh, Independence! ye are indeed desirable objects of attainment; but surely they who seek ye at the expense of the great combining principle of social order, commit a senseless and irremediable blunder.
In the spring following, the mason was employed in building another wall. He hoped that his work would be suffered to proceed without interruption on this occasion at least, but he was speedily undeceived; for one of the stones, just as in the previous year, began to grumble, and protest against the treatment to which it was about to be subjected. The mason, recollecting the former scene, was on the point of flinging it away at once; but second thoughts suggested to him the eligibility of first trying the effect of a little reasoning and remonstrance, “for, after all,” said he, aloud, “no two stones are alike, and though I have met with one that was proof against argument, another may be less intractable in my hands.”
“There it is!” cried the Stone impatiently; “no two stones alike!—that’s your foolish mistake, your ignorance. I tell you that there is no difference between one stone and another: I am just as good as any stone in the wall, and I insist on my prerogatives.”
“Hoity-toity!” exclaimed the mason, “but you are a sturdy beggar! Will you be condescending enough to define your prerogatives? I will thank you to tell me briefly how you would have me dispose of you.”