Explore "Worldly Place" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Even in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, / Marcus Aurelius.
-- But the stifling den / Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, / Our freedom for a little bread we sell, / And drudge under some foolish master's ken, / Who rates us, if we peer outside our pen --
Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?
Even in a palace! On his truth sincere, / Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; / And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame / Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, / I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here!
The aids to noble life are all within. "