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Rh sary. While I then reflect which of them I shall obey, I am struck by one of the cudgels which they were brandishing near; then I recovered consciousness, and I hastily fly into a corner. Thus did I understand that to sit on these chairs, to be near them, or indeed to touch them in any way, is dangerous. Then I went forth from here most gladly, and I resolved never again to return. And thus spake I to my guides: "Let him, who will, approach these heights. I shall not do so."

12. And I was yet more certain of this when I discovered that though these men wished to be called the world-rulers, yet everything was full of unruliness. For whether the prince permitted his subjects to communicate with him through the tubes, or whether he delivered his decrees by means of the whispers of others, I saw as much evil as justice; I heard as much groaning and lamentation as merriment; I found that justice was intermeddled with injustice, and violence with legality. I clearly understood that the town-halls, the law-courts, the chanceries are as much the workshops of falsehood as of righteousness, and that those who call themselves the defenders of order in the world are as much (and often more) the defenders of disorder than of order. And wondering how much vanity and glittering misery is concealed within this estate, I took leave of these men and went away.