"In such a place learning had neither honour nor use. He [meaning himself] was not an enemy of piety, but had no liking for formulas and ceremonies in which pretty much their whole life consists. Besides, in an association like this, as a rule the dull of intellect are put to the front, half fools, who love their bellies more than letters. If any exceptional talent appears among them, one who is born for learning, he is crushed down lest he rise to distinction. And yet such creatures must have a tyrant, and it generally happens that the dullest and wickedest, if only he be of sturdy body, is of most account in the gang. Now then, consider what a cross it would be for a man born to the Muses to pass his whole life among such persons. There is no hope of deliverance unless, perchance, one might be set over a convent of virgins, and that is the worst slavery there is." Here indeed we may see what was really troubling Erasmus. It was not any special hostility to the monastery. It was a dread of anything and anybody that could make any lasting claims upon him. The monastery simply came in for a larger share of his abuse because its claim upon him was more burdensome and more evident. It was not true that a man bred a monk could not rise to almost any distinction in almost any field. The times just before Erasmus were filled with examples of men who, through their own talent and energy, had made their monastic connection the ladder by which they had mounted to far-reaching usefulness. Even Luther, fiery spirit as he was, worked his way to liberty along the path of monastic conformity. For Erasmus a thorough-going conformity to anything was an impossibility. Making all allowance for the effect of later experience upon his record of youthful feeling, we may well believe that he really felt at the moment of his struggle something of what he puts into his defence: "What could such a mind and such a body do in a monastery? As well put a fish into a meadow or an ox into the sea. When those fathers knew this, if there had been a spark of true human love in them, ought they not, of their own accord, to have come to the aid of his youthful ignorance or thoughtlessness and have advised him thus: 'My son, it is idle to make a hopeless struggle; you are not suited to this way of life nor this way of life to you; choose another while as yet no harm is done. Christ dwelleth everywhere, not here alone; piety may be cultivated under any garment, if only the heart be right. We will help you to return to liberty under suitable guardians and friends, so that in future you may not be a burden to us, nor we prove your destruction.'[22] That would have been a speech worthy indeed of pious men. But no one gave a word of warning; nay, rather, they moved their whole machinery to prevent this one poor little tunny from being drawn out of the net." [22] Compare page 27.