If anyone should divulge the secret, it would be ruin to him and to many others; for they would at once be punished by the bestowal of the extremest wealth, by degradation to the rank of rulers and commanders, and by the severest rigors of luxury, power, splendor, and magnificence known among the Kosekin.
Overwhelmed thus with the cares of government, crushed under the weight of authority and autocratic rule, surrounded by countless slaves all ready to die for them, their lives would be embittered and their punishment would be more than they could bear.

But the philosophic Kohen Gadol dared all these punishments, and pursued his way calmly and pertinaciously.
Nothing surprised the Kohen Gadol so much as the manner in which I received his confidences.

He half expected to startle me by his boldness, but was himself confounded by my words.

I told him that in my country self was the chief consideration, self-preservation the law of nature; death the King of Terrors; wealth the object of universal search, poverty the worst of evils; unrequited love nothing less than anguish and despair; to command others the highest glory; victory, honor; defeat, intolerable shame; and other things of the same sort, all of which sounded in his ears, as he said, with such tremendous force that they were like peals of thunder.

He shook his head despondently; he could not believe that such views as mine could ever be attained to among the Kosekin.