Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/114

 events, is ardently interested in the welfare of fellow-citizens or fellow-creatures, the more he alternately hopes and fears, the more he observes every change, kindles into enthusiasm for a beautiful idea, and burns with indignation if he sees it pushed away and trampled upon by those who, for some time at least, were stronger than beautiful ideas. Think of the philosopher, who from out his cell tries to teach the people what truth is, if he has to remark that his voice is overpowered by devout hypocrisy or adventurous quacks. Think of Socrates, not when he empties the poisoned cup—for I speak here of the experience of the mind, and not of that which owes its existence to external circumstances,—how intensely sad his soul must have been, when he, who loved what is right and true, heard himself called a corrupter of youth and a despiser of the gods. Or better still, think of, gazing with such profound sadness on Jerusalem, and complaining that it “would not!”

Such a cry of grief—above that of the poisoned cup, or cross—does not come from an untried heart. There must have been sufferingthere is experience!

This outburst has escaped me,—it now stands, and may remain. Havelaar had experienced much. Will you have, for instance, something that counterbalances the removing from A Street? He had suffered shipwreck more than once, he had experience of fire, insurrection, assassination, war, duels, luxury, poverty, hunger, cholera, love,