manhood or liberty--this world is a
pretty good world for such a man. I do not care: I am going to say my
say, whether I make money or grow poor; no matter whether I get high
office or walk along the dusty highway of the common. I am going to
say my say, and I had rather be a farmer and live on forty acres of
land--live in a log cabin that I built myself, and have a little grassy
path going down to the spring, so that I can go there and hear the
waters gurgling, and know that it is coming out from the lips of the
earth, like a poem, whispering to the white pebbles--I would rather
live there, and have some hollyhocks at the corner of the house, and
the larks singing and swinging in the trees, and some lattice over the
window, so that the sunlight can fall checkered on the babe in the
cradle. I had rather live there, and have the freedom of my own brain;
I had rather do that than live in a palace of gold, and crawl, a slimy
hypocrite, through this world. Superstition has done enough harm
already; every religion, nearly, suspects everything that is pleasant,
everything that is joyous, and they always have a notion that God feels
best when we feel worst. They have chained the Andromeda of joy to the
cold rock of ignorance and fear, there to be devoured by the dragon of
superstition. Church and State are two vultures that have fed upon the
heart of chained Prometheus. I say, let the human race have a chance
let every man think for himself and express that thought. There is no
wrath in the serene heavens; there is no scowl in the blue of the sky.
Upon the throne of the universe tyranny does not sit as a king.

The speaker here took from his pocket a pair of spectacles, and
adjusted them, saying: I am sorry to admit it; I have got to come to
it. I hate to put on a pair of spectacles, but the other day, as I was
putting them on, a thought struck me. I see progress in this. To
progress is to overcome the obstacles of nature, and in order to
overcome this obstacle of the loss of sight man invented spectacles.
Spectacles led men to the telescope, with which he read all the starry
heavens; and had it not been for the failure of sight we wouldn't have
seen a millionth part that we have. In the first place, we owe nothing
but truth to the dead. I am going to tell the truth about them. There
are three theories by which men account for all phenomena--for
everything that happens: First, the supernatural. In the olden time,