Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/164



they again lead me to a spacious lecture-room, in which I saw more notable men than elsewhere. All along the walls they had painted masonry blockhouses, fences, ramparts, rails, partition-walls, and partitions; and through these, again, there were gaps and holes, doors and gates, bolts and locks, and together with them divers keys, hinges, and hooks. All these men in the lecture-room pointed to this, and attempted to measure where and how it would be possible to enter or not. And I asked: "What, then, are these folks doing?" The answer was that they were striving to discover how every man in the world could retain possession of his goods, and also transfer peacefully to himself the goods of others while maintaining order and concord. Then I said: "This is a pretty thing;" yet after watching it for some time, it disgusted me.

2. And this was mainly because they had enclosed within these barriers not the spirit or the