=Freedom a condition precedent.=--Complete living is impossible outside
the domain of freedom. The prisons show forth no examples of complete
living. But mental thralldom is quite as inimical to complete living as
thralldom of the body. The mind must know in order to move among the
things of life in freedom. Ignorance is slavery. The mind that is unable
to read the inscription on a monument stands baffled and helpless, and
no form of slavery can be more abject. The man who cannot read the bill
of fare of life is in no position to revel in the good things that life
offers. The man who cannot read the signboards of life gropes and
flounders about in the byways and so misses the charms. If he knows the
way, he has freedom; otherwise he is in thralldom. The man who cannot
interpret life as it shows itself in hill, in valley, in stream and rock
and tree, goes through life with bandaged eyes, and that condition
affords no freedom.
=Street signs.=--A man who had been traveling through Europe for several
weeks, and had finally reached London, wrote enthusiastically of his
pleasure at being able to read the street signs. All summer he had felt
restricted and hampered, but when he reached a country where the street
signs were intelligible, he gained his freedom. Had he been as familiar
with Italian, German, and French as he is with English, life would have
been for him far more nearly complete during that summer and therefore
much more agreeable and fertile.
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