“For my part I hold that the toadies are far
worse than the men they toady to, and that they
alone are to blame for the arrogance of the others.
When they admire their possessions, praise their
plate, crowd their doorways in the early morning
and go up and speak to them as a slave speaks to his
master, how can you expect the rich to feel? If by
common consent they refrained but a short time from
this voluntary servitude, don’t you think that the
tables would be turned, and that the rich would
come to the doors of the poor and beg them not to
leave their happiness unobserved and unattested and
their beautiful tables and great houses unenjoyed
and unused? It is not so much being rich that they
like as being congratulated on it. The fact is, of
course, that the man who lives in a fine house gets
no good of it, nor of his ivory and gold either, unless
someone admires it all. What men ought to do,
then, is to reduce and cheapen the rank of the rich
in this way, erecting in the face of their wealth a