It began with Poland, a country which, the less it existed politically, he said, was the better to live in, and be of. We live by our emotions, the beasts by their appetites--a material distinction. Now, the condition of the Poles was perfectly adapted to the quickening of the emotional parts. Shorten time, you make love a precious ecstasy; restrict liberty, freedom is a lust--none the worse for being lawful. No Pole knows how long he may have to live: Russia or phthisis will have him late or soon. What he pursues, then, must be fleeting--imagine with what rapture he takes it to his breast! with what frenzy he guards it, never knowing when it will be required of him again. Feverish? (This was upon a remark from her.) Yes, and why not? Are not dreams more vivid than waking life? Can you gallop your material horse as your courser of the mind? Better to burn than to rust. That's the secret of life--which all the laws of bureaucrats are directed to destroy. The establishments want to see us as fixed as themselves. They are tentacled, stationary creatures, feeding at ease. They would have us handy of access, falsely secure, so that they can fasten on us one by one and suck our juices. But the world is changing, thrones and churches are slackening in their hold. Men are discovering how short a time they have to live, and that eternity is more than questionable. A mild Epicureanism is gaining ground. Instincts founded on the patriarchal system must give way to that. “Have you ever considered,” he asked abruptly, “that the flocks and herds of the Semitic patriarch are the sole cause of the moral code which we still profess? Thou shalt not steal. Why not? Because you injure the patriarch. Not murder? You might attack one of his family. You have the habit in England of tracing prejudices to the Feudal System: believe me, there is hardly anything in Europe so modern. I should date at 4000 B.C. nearly all our present conventions, from the British Sunday to the law of conspiracy. So long as you say that property is sacred, you uplift the Patriarch and lose sight of the man.”