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Did Lord Nishida covet the shogunate? Is not power the drug of all drugs, the most dangerous of all, transcending the trivialities, the banalities, of chemistry, to which even the most professedly humble and self-effacing might be irremediably addicted? But perhaps he was loyal. - (Swordsmen of Gor, Chapter 25, Sentence #40)

I thought him purposeful, and probably unscrupulous, and perhaps cruel. If one did labor so, handicapped with a conscience, I suspected it likely that others, not so slowed, not so burdened, would be before him, be first to seize the scepter, sit upon the throne, and place about their necks the medallion of the Ubar. I wondered if Lord Nishida was truly loyal to his shogun, and, if so, I wondered if his shogun was such as to deserve such loyalty, or might he, rather, in his way, regard lightly the feudal pledges which would bind a lord and vassal. Did Lord Nishida covet the shogunate? Is not power the drug of all drugs, the most dangerous of all, transcending the trivialities, the banalities, of chemistry, to which even the most professedly humble and self-effacing might be irremediably addicted? But perhaps he was loyal. There are such men, men to whom the treasure of their word, once given, however foolishly, commands the single irrepudiable allegiance. What of his own status? Was it secure? Perhaps there were others who aspired to the pavilion of the daimyo. Did not Lord Nishida himself, as daimyos and shoguns, as Ubars, and tyrants, and kings and princes, sit uneasily beneath the sword of Damocles? Men were men, I thought, whether of Ar, or Cos, or Schendi, or of the Pani. - (Swordsmen of Gor, Chapter 25)