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They know all the lurking-holes, all the winding recesses, of the unfortunate; and they hunt out distress and misery even to their last retreats. They have suffered themselves; but, far from being taught by those sufferings to abstain from rigor, they have only learned the methods of afflicting their fellow-slaves. They have the best intelligence of what is done in England.
"I am glad to learn," says Seneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, "that you live on terms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your erudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions. Slaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? Nay, fellow-slaves, if you but consider that fortune has power over you both."
In his hand gleamed a long bright knife, while at his side was suspended a freshly-severed human arm and hand. Yelling and leaping like a veritable demon, he suddenly noticed the flying figures of our fellow-slaves, and halting a moment, dashed after them, leaving us alone.
Already, looking, or rather, squinting, back along our rugged and random track, we perceive that the bloodiest battle ever fought by our badly-bushed forefathers on British soil and that only one of a series of twelve, in which fathers, sons, brothers, kinsmen, and fellow-slaves exterminated each other was fought to decide whether a drivelling imbecile or a shameless lecher should bring our said forefathers under the operation of I Samuel, viii.
There as here we see stratagem in combat with superior force, and firmness, strengthened by unanimity, wearying out a mighty power weakened by division; then as now private hatred armed a whole nation; a single man, born for his times, revealed to his fellow-slaves the dangerous Secret of their power, and brought their mute grief to a bloody announcement.
This is the theory of Russian taxation; but against its actual carrying out in fact, is opposed the old difficulty, that from him who has nothing, nothing can possibly be extracted; and as the poor serfs have no more means of paying taxes than the hogs and cattle their fellow-slaves, a considerate paternal government drops its theory, and makes the landowner pay the poll-tax for the slaves he possesses, much as an English gentleman pays taxes for his horses and dogs, horses and dogs being as little able to pay tax themselves as the Russian serf.
Yet as I went I felt myself shiver, for though I had been compelled to fight the naked wretches who had been my fellow-slaves, I had killed no man as yet. Thus as I went, chancing to stumble against a tree, I leaned there awhile; and now remembering those two blows under the armpit, what with this stabbing and my fall and lack of food, for I had eaten but once that day, I grew faint and sick.
To-day to us a prince is given, to-day 'A prince without a kingdom. 'But not without that which makes kingdoms precious, and which full many a royal heart has sighed for, willing subjects, David. 'Slaves, Miriam, fellow-slaves. 'What we are, my brother, our God has willed; and let us bow and tremble. 'I will not bow, I cannot tremble. 'Hush, David, hush!
But now, with death staring me in the face, I could see that though I was a friendless "slave-boy," I had not always done as well as I knew how; that I had not served God as I knew I ought, nor had I always set a good example before my fellow-slaves, nor warned them as well as I might, "to flee the wrath to come."
A gradation of patricians and plebeians, of strangers and subjects, has supported the aristocracy of Genoa, Venice, and ancient Rome. The perfect equality of men is the point in which the extremes of democracy and despotism are confounded; since the majesty of the prince or people would be offended, if any heads were exalted above the level of their fellow-slaves or fellow-citizens.
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