nt, for one night; and, as I stood
considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet
thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron
grating which strained the light, I could not help being
struck with the foolishness of that institution which
treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to
be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at
length that this was the best use it could put me to, and
had never thought to avail itself of my services in some
way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me
and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to
climb or break through before they could get to be as free
as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the
walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as
if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly
did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who
are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment
there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire
was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not
but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on
my meditations, which followed them out again without let or
hindrance, and _they_ were really all that was dangerous.
As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish
my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person
against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw
that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone
woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its
friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect
for it, and pitied it.

Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's
sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses.
It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with
superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced.
I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the
strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force
me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become
like themselves. I do not hear of _men_ being _forced_ to
live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life
were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me,
"Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give
it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what
to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do.
It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am