"Bah! what stupid, sneaking notions you have of liberty, surely! I tell you again that I must have space to expand and expatiate in. Do you think that I can stoop to fill the office of a mere wedge?" "You tire out my patience, friend," said the mason: "there is no use in arguing the matter further. I see I cannot get you to take up your lodging in the wall: I see I must throw you on the earth again." "Very well; be it so," returned the Stone: "liberty before all things! Pitch me to a respectable distance from the other stones, that I may feel myself unshackled and independent. I have the same right to be a free-_stone_ that you have to be a free-_mason_." "There, then," said the mason, and with the words he cast the Stone from him into the middle of the highway. The Stone was now in the full enjoyment of its darling liberty. Exceedingly did it congratulate itself. For a time also everything went well with it. The summer was a mild one; the skies were bright, and the foot of the passenger was continually transferring it to a new locality, and showing it daily more and more of the _ways_ of the world. But, alas! the summer could not last for ever: autumn came, and brought with it clouds of dust and showers of yellow leaves; and when the wind-gusts had subsided, there fell on the earth heavy torrents of rain; and the highway was covered with mire, and the measure of the isolated stone was forthwith taken for a surtout of mud; and there it lay, fallen from its high estate, and completely confounded by the passing eye with the vilest of the rubbish in its vicinity. But this was not the worst: in the course of a few weeks, the rains continuing still to fall, and the mire to accumulate, the earth gave way under it, and it became, as it were, imbedded in a hole produced by the force of its own pressure on the soft soil, till at last no part of it remained above ground except the upper surface. Unfortunately, too, there was no longer a possibility of retracing its steps, for the wall was now erected and the mason was far away. Nothing remained for it but to sink deeplier and deeplier into the earth, until not a vestige of it remained visible to the eye. Alas! for our poor Stone! Oh, Liberty! Oh, Independence! ye are indeed desirable objects of attainment; but surely they who seek ye at the expense of the great combining principle of social order, commit a senseless and irremediable blunder.