“Far as that society has spread its snares, has it so much as left a single small spot on earth, where those yet unborn who should dislike its partial regulations may find room to retire to the enjoyment of their birthright? Or, if there be any such asylum remaining in the wilds of Tartary or the wastes of America, has not society, at any rate, so monopolized all the means of disentangling oneself from its mazes, as to render the gaining these blissful abodes next to impossible? Must we not possess caravans, or vessels, licenses and passports, even to fly to the loneliness of the desert, together with a strength of body and of mind, of which the social institutions take care to deprive us ere we suspect their dangerous power? They cut our claws, they clip our wings, and then they cry out with a smile of derision, “poor pinioned eagle, fly if thou list!” The man who is not wealthy can only escape from society through the gates of death. […]