This is indeed the voice of an Awakener. But, alas for awakeners! the vision of the morning is never fair to those just shaken out of their dreams. In an introductory letter to the last of the dialogues we catch an echo of the sleeper’s complaint: “If I shoved a plow, if I kept a flock, if I cultivated a garden, if I mended old clothes, no one would notice me, few would consider me, not many would find fault with me, and I could easily please everybody. But for having been studious of the field of nature, solicitous for the pasture of the soul, enamored of the cultivation of the mind, a very Daedalus fashioning raiment for the intellect, every passer-by threatens me, every one who sees me attacks me, who comes upon me rends me, who lays hold on me devours. It is not one, it is not a few; it is many, it is almost all. If you would know why this is, I will tell you the reason of it--I despise the crowd, I hate the mob, the multitude contents me not. One thing I love, one thing for whose sake I am free in bondage, content in pain, rich in poverty, alive in very death. One thing for whose sake I envy not those who are slaves in their liberty, troubled in their pleasure, poor in their riches, dead in their life. Their body is the chain that binds them, in their mind is the hell that tortures them, in their spirit the falsehood that makes them sick, in their soul the lethargy that kills. Not theirs the greatness of mind which frees, the breadth of view which ennobles. Not theirs the splendor which illumines, nor the science which gives life.” It is a brave, even an over-brave flourish with which Bruno ends this proemial epistle: “And so the gods deliver me from all those who unjustly hate me, and my God be always propitious unto me!... The stars let my sowing fit the field and the field my sowing, that the world be made content with the useful and glorious fruits of my labors!... And if I err, I truly do not believe myself to err; whether speaking or writing, I do not dispute for the love of victory.... For love of true wisdom and desire for true insight I exhaust, I crucify, I torture myself....” * * * * *