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116 But if these men differ by the conditions which Fortune imposed on them, and in which it long kept them, they are still more distinguished by the feelings and tendencies (Gesinnung) which they manifested when they attained the summit of power, and where the great Word of Life could be uttered free from all restraint. Casimir Perier, who was never dependent, who always possessed the golden mean to maintain in himself the feeling of freedom and to inform and elevate himself by culture, at once became small-minded, and then, like a petty shopkeeper, ignoring his true power, bowed low before the men of might whom he could have crushed, and begged for the peace which he should have demanded as a right or granted as a favour. For now he wrongs hospitality, and with it the most sacred adversity, and, like a reversed Prometheus, steals light and fire from men that he may return it to the gods. But George Canning, on the contrary, once a