All these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so variously complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three outlines with which our recital has supplied it. It is not unlikely that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings, just as at a theatre, where a colossus appears upon the scene, walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework.
From The Man In The Iron Mask, by Alexandre Dumas