At any rate, if we have not effected all we wished, we shall have influenced ourselves. It may be true that one cannot do much. "You are not Hercules, and you are not able to purge away the wickedness of others; nor yet are you Theseus, able to drive away the evil things of Attica. But you may clear away your own. From yourself, from your own thoughts, cast away, instead of Procrustes and Sciron, [4] sadness, fear, desire, envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance. But it is not possible to eject these things otherwise than by looking to God only, by fixing your affections on Him only, by being consecrated by his commands." [5] People sometimes think how delightful it would be to be quite free. But a fish, as Ruskin says, is freer than a man, and as for a fly, it is "a black incarnation of freedom." A life of so-called pleasure and self-indulgence is not a life of real happiness or true freedom. Far from it, if we once begin to give way to ourselves, we fall under a most intolerable tyranny. Other temptations are in some respects like that of drink. At first, perhaps, it seems delightful, but there is bitterness at the bottom of the cup. Men drink to satisfy the desire created by previous indulgence. So it is in other things. Repetition soon becomes a craving, not a pleasure. Resistance grows more and more painful; yielding, which at first, perhaps, afforded some slight and temporary gratification, soon ceases to give pleasure, and even if for a time it procures relief, ere long becomes odious itself. To resist is difficult, to give way is painful; until at length the wretched victim to himself, can only purchase, or thinks he can only purchase, temporary relief from intolerable craving and depression, at the expense of far greater suffering in the future. On the other hand, self-control, however difficult at first, becomes step by step easier and more delightful. We possess mysteriously a sort of dual nature, and there are few truer triumphs, or more delightful sensations, than to obtain thorough command of oneself. How much pleasanter it is to ride a spirited horse, even perhaps though requiring some strength and skill, than to creep along upon a jaded hack. In the one case you feel under you the free, responsive spring of a living and willing force; in the other you have to spur a dull and lifeless slave. To rule oneself is in reality the greatest triumph. "He who is his own monarch," says Sir T. Browne, "contentedly sways the sceptre of himself, not envying the glory to crowned heads and Elohim of the earth;" for those are really highest who are nearest to heaven, and those are lowest who are farthest from it. True greatness has little, if anything, to do with rank or power. "Eurystheus being what he was," says Epictetus, "was not really king of Argos nor of Mycenae, for he could not even rule himself; while Hercules purged lawlessness and introduced justice, though he was both naked and alone."