Sale of Creeds (8-9)

Tell me, good fellow, where do you come from?

Everywhere.

What does that mean?

It means that I am a citizen of the world.

And your model?

Heracles.

Then why no lion’s-skin? You have the orthodox club.

My cloak is my lion’s-skin. Like Heracles, I live in a state of warfare, and my enemy is Pleasure; but unlike him I am a volunteer. My purpose is to purify humanity.

A noble purpose. Now what do I understand to be your strong subject?. What is your profession?

The liberation of humanity, and the treatment of the” passions, In short, I am the prophet of Truth and Candour.

Well, prophet; and if I buy you, how shall you handle my case?

I shall commence operations by stripping off your superfluities, putting you into fustian, and leaving you closeted with Necessity. Then I shall give you a course of hard labour. You will sleep on the ground, drink water, and fill your belly as best you can, Have you money? ‘Take my advice and throw it into the sea. With wife and children and country you will not concern yourself; there will be no more of that nonsense. You will exchange your present home for a sepulchre, a ruin, or a tub. What with lupines and close-written tomes, your knapsack will never be empty; and you will vote yourself happier than any king. Nor will you esteem it any inconvenience, if a flogging or a turn of the rack should fall to your lot.

How! Am I a tortoise, a lobster, that I should be flogged and feel it not?

You will take your cue from Hippolytus; mutatis mutandis.

How so?

‘The heart may burn, the tongue knows nought thereof’[*]