The
terrible Atossa, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, shrank from contact with
Pope, while for a long time the ablest men of the political sets
approached Swift like lackeys. One power was made manifest by the
waspish verse-maker and the powerful satirist, and each was acknowledged
as a sort of monarch.
It would be like playing at paradoxes if I went on to adduce many
mysteries and contradictions that strike us when we consider man's
dominion over man. We can only come to the same conclusion if we bring
forward a million of instances; we can only see that the whole human
race, individual by individual, are separated one from the other by
differences more or less minute, and wherever two human beings are
placed together one must inevitably begin to assert mastery over the
other. The method of self-assertion may be that of the athlete, or that
of the intriguer, or that of the clear-sighted over the purblind, or
that of the subtle over the simple; it matters not, the effort for
mastery may be made either roughly or gently, or subtly, or even
clownishly, but made it will be.
Would it not be better to cease babbling of equality altogether, and to
try to accept the laws of life with some submission? The mistake of
rabid theorists lies in their supposition that the assertion of
superiority by one person necessarily inflicts wrong on another, whereas
it is only the mastery obtained by certain men over others that makes
the life of the civilized human creature bearable.
Pages:
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357