I NEVER SHOULD HAVE VENTURED to follow my desires — I should have entered old age as indifferent as I entered manhood! But because I for once attempt to escape the drab uniformity of my previous life and look to see if I might not find some other source of pleasure — because I —”

“If it was an experiment, Your Highness, then I have nothing more to say — for the experiences that it has provided you with would not be expensive at three times the price. It caused me pain, I admit, that the world should decide the question that belongs only to your own heart — the question of how you should find happiness.”

“You are fortunate that you can scorn the opinion of the world! I am her creature, I must be her slave. What are we other than opinion? Everything surrounding us as princes is opinion. Opinion is our nurse and governess in childhood, our legislator and lover once we are men, and our crutch in old age. Take from us what we owe to opinion, and the worst off amongst the lower classes is better off than we are, for his fate has at least taught him a philosophy to comfort him as he faces his fate. A prince who mocks opinion undermines his own being as much as the priest who denies the existence of God.”