Chapter VIII: Part 8

_CENSOR VITÆ_--Alternations of love and hatred for a long period distinguish the inward condition of a man who desires to be free in his judgment of life; he does not forget, and bears everything a grudge, for good and evil. At last, when the whole tablet of his soul is written full of experiences, he will not hate and despise existence, neither will he love it, but will regard it sometimes with a joyful, sometimes with a sorrowful eye, and, like nature, will be now in a summer and now in an autumn mood.

288.

THE SECONDARY RESULT.--Whoever earnestly desires to be free will therewith and without any compulsion lose all inclination for faults and vices; he will also be more rarely overcome by anger and vexation. His will desires nothing more urgently than to discern, and the means to do this,--that is, the permanent condition in which he is best able to discern.

289.

THE VALUE OF DISEASE.--The man who is bed-ridden often perceives that he is usually ill of his position, business, or society, and through them has lost all self-possession. He gains this piece of knowledge from the idleness to which his illness condemns him.

290.

SENSITIVENESS IN THE COUNTRY.--If there are no firm, quiet lines on the horizon of his life, a species of mountain and forest line, man's inmost will itself becomes restless, inattentive, and covetous, as is the nature of a dweller in towns; he has no happiness and confers no happiness.

291.

PRUDENCE OF THE FREE SPIRITS.--Free-thinkers, those who live by knowledge alone, will soon attain the supreme aim of their life and their ultimate position towards society and State, and will gladly content themselves, for instance, with a small post or an income that is just sufficient to enable them to live; for they will arrange to live in such a manner that a great change of outward prosperity, even an overthrow of the political order, would not cause an overthrow of their life. To all these things they devote as little energy as possible in order that with their whole accumulated strength, and with a long breath, they may dive into the element of knowledge. Thus they can hope to dive deep and be able to see the bottom. Such a spirit seizes only the point of an event, he does not care for things in the whole breadth and prolixity of their folds, for he does not wish to entangle himself in them. He, too, knows the weekdays of restraint, of dependence and servitude. But from time to time there must dawn for him a Sunday of liberty, otherwise he could not endure life. It is probable that even his love for humanity will be prudent and somewhat short-winded, for he desires to meddle with the world of inclinations and of blindness only as far as is necessary for the purpose of knowledge. He must trust that the genius of justice will say something for its disciple and protege if accusing voices were to call him poor in love. In his mode of life and thought there is a _refined heroism,_ which scorns to offer itself to the great mob-reverence, as its coarser brother does, and passes quietly through and out of the world. Whatever labyrinths it traverses, beneath whatever rocks its stream has occasionally worked its way--when it reaches the light it goes clearly, easily, and almost noiselessly on its way, and lets the sunshine strike down to its very bottom.

292.

FORWARD.--And thus forward upon the path of wisdom, with a firm step and good confidence! However you may be situated, serve yourself as a source of experience! Throw off the displeasure at your nature, forgive yourself your own individuality, for in any case you have in yourself a ladder with a hundred steps upon which you can mount to knowledge. The age into which with grief you feel yourself thrown thinks you happy because of this good fortune; it calls out to you that you shall still have experiences which men of later ages will perhaps be obliged to forego. Do not despise the fact of having been religious; consider fully how you have had a genuine access to art. Can you not, with the help of these experiences, follow immense stretches of former humanity with a clearer understanding? Is not that ground which sometimes displeases you so greatly, that ground of clouded thought, precisely the one upon which have grown many of the most glorious fruits of older civilisations? You must have loved religion and art as you loved mother and nurse,--otherwise you cannot be wise. But you must be able to see beyond them, to outgrow them; if you, remain under their ban you do not understand them. You must also be familiar with history and that cautious play with the balances: "On the one hand--on the other hand." Go back, treading in the footsteps made by mankind in its great and painful journey through the desert of the past, and you will learn most surely whither it is that all later humanity never can or may go again. And inasmuch as you wish with all your strength to see in advance how the knots of the future are tied, your own life acquires the value of an instrument and means of knowledge. It is within your power to see that all you have experienced, trials, errors, faults, deceptions, passions, your love and your hope, shall be merged wholly in your aim. This aim is to become a necessary chain of culture-links yourself, and from this necessity to draw a conclusion as to the necessity in the progress of general culture. When your sight has become strong enough to see to the bottom of the dark well of your nature and your knowledge, it is possible that in its mirror you may also behold the far-away visions of future civilisations. Do you think that such a life with such an aim is too wearisome, too empty of all that is agreeable? Then you have still to learn that no honey is sweeter than that of knowledge, and that the overhanging clouds of trouble must be to you as an udder from which you shall draw milk for your refreshment. And only when old age approaches will you rightly perceive how you listened to the voice of nature, that nature which rules the whole world through pleasure; the same life which has its zenith in age has also its zenith in wisdom, in that mild sunshine of a constant mental joyfulness; you meet them both, old age and wisdom, upon one ridge of life,--it was thus intended by Nature. Then it is time, and no cause for anger, that the mists of death approach. Towards the light is your last movement; a joyful cry of knowledge is your last sound.

[Footnote 1: This may remind one of Gobineau's more jocular saying: "_Nous ne descendons pas du singe, mais nous y allons._"--J.M.K.]

[Footnote 2: This refers to his essay, "Schopenhauer as Educator," in _Thoughts Out of Season,_ vol. ii. of the English edition.--J.M.K.]

[Footnote 3: For it is when loving that mortal man gives of his best.--J.M.K.]

SIXTH DIVISION.

MAN IN SOCIETY.

293.

WELL-MEANT DISSIMULATION.--In intercourse with men a well-meant dissimulation is often necessary, as if we did not see through the motives of their actions.

294.

COPIES.--We not unfrequently meet with copies of prominent persons; and as in the case of pictures, so also here, the copies please more than the originals.

295.

THE PUBLIC SPEAKER.--One may speak with the greatest appropriateness, and yet so that everybody cries out to the contrary,--that is to say, when one does not speak to everybody.

296.

WANT OF CONFIDENCE.--Want of confidence among friends is a fault that cannot be censured without becoming incurable.

297.

THE ART OF GIVING.--To have to refuse a gift, merely because it has not been offered in the right way, provokes animosity against the giver.

298.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PARTISAN.--In every party there is one who, by his far too dogmatic expression of the party-principles, excites defection among the others.

299.

ADVISERS OF THE SICK.--Whoever gives advice to a sick person acquires a feeling of superiority over him, whether the advice be accepted or rejected. Hence proud and sensitive sick persons hate advisers more than their sickness.

300.

DOUBLE NATURE OF EQUALITY.--The rage for equality may so manifest itself that we seek either to draw all others down to ourselves (by belittling, disregarding, and tripping up), or ourselves and all others upwards (by recognition, assistance, and congratulation).

301.

AGAINST EMBARRASSMENT.--The best way to relieve and calm very embarrassed people is to give them decided praise.

302.

PREFERENCE FOR CERTAIN VIRTUES.--We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we perceive that it is entirely lacking in our adversary.

303.

WHY WE CONTRADICT.--We often contradict an opinion when it is really only the tone in which it is expressed that is unsympathetic to us.

304.

CONFIDENCE AND INTIMACY.--Whoever proposes to command the intimacy of a person is usually uncertain of possessing his confidence. Whoever is sure of a person's confidence attaches little value to intimacy with him.

305.

THE EQUILIBRIUM OF FRIENDSHIP.--The right equilibrium of friendship in our relation to other men is sometimes restored when we put a few grains of wrong on our own side of the scales.

306.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PHYSICIANS.--The most dangerous physicians are those who, like born actors, imitate the born physician with the perfect art of imposture.

307.

WHEN PARADOXES ARE PERMISSIBLE.--In order to interest clever persons in a theory, it is sometimes only necessary to put it before them in the form of a prodigious paradox.

308.

HOW COURAGEOUS PEOPLE ARE WON OVER.--Courageous people are persuaded to a course of action by representing it as more dangerous than it really is.

309.

COURTESIES.--We regard the courtesies show us by unpopular persons as offences.

310.

KEEPING PEOPLE WAITING.--A sure way of exasperating people and of putting bad thoughts into their heads is to keep them waiting long. That makes them immoral.

311.

AGAINST THE CONFIDENTIAL.--Persons who give us their full confidence think they hay thereby a right to ours. That is a mistake people acquire no rights through gifts.

312.

A MODE OF SETTLEMENT.--It often suffices to give a person whom we have injured an opportunity to make a joke about us to give him personal satisfaction, and even to make him favourably disposed to us.

313.

THE VANITY OF THE TONGUE.--Whether man conceals his bad qualities and vices, or frankly acknowledges them, his vanity in either case seeks its advantage thereby,--only let it be observed how nicely he distinguishes those from whom he conceals such qualities from those with whom he is frank and honest.

314.

CONSIDERATE.--To have no wish to offend or injure any one may as well be the sign of a just as of a timid nature.

315.

REQUISITE FOR DISPUTATION.--He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.

316.

INTERCOURSE AND PRETENSION.--We forget our pretensions when we are always conscious of being amongst meritorious people; being alone implants presumption in us. The young are pretentious, for they associate with their equals, who are all ciphers but would fain have a great significance.

317.

MOTIVES OF AN ATTACK.--One does not attack a person merely to hurt and conquer him, but perhaps merely to become conscious of one's own strength.

318.

FLATTERY.--Persons who try by means of flattery to put us off our guard in intercourse with them, employ a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping-draught, which, when it does not send the patient to sleep, keeps him all the wider awake.

319.

A GOOD LETTER-WRITER.--A person who does not write books, thinks much, and lives in unsatisfying society, will usually be a good letter-writer.

320.

THE UGLIEST OF ALL.--It may be doubted whether a person who has travelled much has found anywhere in the world uglier places than those to be met with in the human face.

321.

THE SYMPATHETIC ONES.--Sympathetic natures, ever ready to help in misfortune, are seldom those that participate in joy; in the happiness of others they have nothing to occupy them, they are superfluous, they do not feel themselves in possession of their superiority, and hence readily show their displeasure.

322.

THE RELATIVES OF A SUICIDE.--The relatives of a suicide take it in ill part that he did not remain alive out of consideration for their reputation.

323.

INGRATITUDE FORESEEN.--He who makes a large gift gets no gratitude; for the recipient is already overburdened by the acceptance of the gift.

324.

IN DULL SOCIETY.--Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

325.

THE PRESENCE OF WITNESSES.--We are doubly willing to jump into the water after some one who has fallen in, if there are people present who have not the courage to do so.

326.

BEING SILENT.--For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.

327.

FRIENDS' SECRETS.--Few people will not expose the private affairs of their friends when at a loss for a subject of conversation.

328.

HUMANITY.--The humanity of intellectual celebrities consists in courteously submitting to unfairness in intercourse with those who are I not celebrated.

329.

THE EMBARRASSED.--People who do not feel sure of themselves in society seize every opportunity of publicly showing their superiority to close friends, for instance by teasing them.

330.

THANKS.--A refined nature is vexed by knowing that some one owes it thanks, a coarse nature by knowing that it owes thanks to some one.

331.

A SIGN OF ESTRANGEMENT.--The surest sign of the estrangement of the opinions of two persons is when they both say something ironical to each other and neither of them feels the irony.

332.

PRESUMPTION IN CONNECTION WITH MERIT.--Presumption in connection with merit offends us even more than presumption in persons devoid of merit, for merit in itself offends us.

333.

DANGER IN THE VOICE.--In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and misled to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions.

334.

IN CONVERSATION.--Whether in conversation with others we mostly agree or mostly disagree with them is a matter of habit; there is sense in both cases.

335.

FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.--We are afraid of the animosity of our neighbour, because we are apprehensive that he may thereby discover our secrets.

336.

DISTINGUISHING BY BLAMING.--Highly respected persons distribute even their blame in such fashion that they try to distinguish us therewith. It is intended to remind us of their serious interest in us. We misunderstand them entirely when we take their blame literally and protest against it; we thereby offend them and estrange ourselves from them.

337.

INDIGNATION AT THE GOODWILL OF OTHERS.--We are mistaken as to the extent to which we think we are hated or feared; because,' though we ourselves know very well the extent of our divergence from a person, tendency, or party, those others know us only superficially, and can, therefore, only hate us superficially. We often meet with goodwill which is inexplicable to us; but when we comprehend it, it shocks us, because it shows that we are not considered with sufficient Seriousness or importance.

338.

THWARTING VANITIES.--When two persons meet whose vanity is equally great, they have afterwards a bad impression of each other because each has been so occupied with the impression he wished to produce on the other that the other has made no impression upon him; at last it becomes clear to them both that their efforts have been in vain, and each puts the blame on the other.

339.

IMPROPER BEHAVIOUR AS A GOOD SIGN.--A superior mind takes pleasure in the tactlessness, pretentiousness, and even hostility of ambitious youths; it is the vicious habit of fiery horses which have not yet carried a rider, but, in a short time, will be so proud to carry one.

340.

WHEN IT IS ADVISABLE TO SUFFER WRONG.--It is well to put up with accusations without refutation, even when they injure us, when the accuser would see a still greater fault on our part if we contradicted and perhaps even refuted him. In this way, certainly, a person may always be wronged and always have right on his side, and may eventually, with the best conscience in the world, become the most intolerable tyrant and tormentor; and what happens in the individual may also take place in whole classes of society.

341.

Too LITTLE HONOURED.--Very conceited persons, who have received less consideration than they expected, attempt for a long time to deceive themselves and others with regard to it, and become subtle psychologists in order to make out that they have been amply honoured. Should they not attain their aim, should the veil of deception be torn, they give way to all the greater fury.

342.

PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS RE--ECHOING IN SPEECH.--By the manner in which people make assertions in their intercourse we often recognise an echo of the times when they were more conversant with weapons than anything else; sometimes they handle their assertions like sharp-shooters using their arms, sometimes we think we hear the whizz and clash of swords, and with some men an assertion crashes down like a stout cudgel. Women, on the contrary, speak like beings who for thousands of years have sat at the loom, plied the needle, or played the child with children.

343.

THE NARRATOR.--He who gives an account of something readily betrays whether it is because the fact interests him, or because he wishes to excite interest by the narration. In the latter case he will exaggerate, employ superlatives, and such like. He then does not usually tell his story so well, because he does not think so much about his subject as about himself.

344.

THE RECITER.--He who recites dramatic works makes discoveries about his own character; he finds his voice more natural in certain moods and scenes than in others, say in the pathetic or in the scurrilous, while in ordinary life, perhaps, he has not had the opportunity to exhibit pathos or scurrility.

345.

A COMEDY SCENE IN REAL LIFE.--Some one conceives an ingenious idea on a theme in order to express it in society. Now in a comedy we should hear and see how he sets all sail for that point, and tries to land the company at the place where he can make his remark, how he continuously pushes the conversation towards the one goal, sometimes losing the way, finding it again, and finally arriving at the moment: he is almost breathless--and then one of the company takes the remark itself out of his mouth! What will he do? Oppose his own opinion?

346.

UNINTENTIONALLY DISCOURTEOUS.--When a person treats another with unintentional discourtesy,--for instance, not greeting him because not recognising him,--he is vexed by it, although he cannot reproach his own sentiments; he is hurt by the bad opinion which he has produced in the other person, or fears the consequences of his bad humour, or is pained by the thought of having injured him,--vanity, fear, or pity may therefore be aroused; perhaps all three together.

347.

A MASTERPIECE OF TREACHERY.--To express a tantalising distrust of a fellow-conspirator, lest he should betray one, and this at the very moment when one is practising treachery one's self, is a masterpiece of wickedness; because it absorbs the other's attention and compels him for a time to act very unsuspiciously and openly, so that the real traitor has thus acquired a free hand.

348.

To INJURE AND TO BE INJURED.--It is far pleasanter to injure and afterwards beg for forgiveness than to be injured and grant forgiveness. He who does the former gives evidence of power and afterwards of kindness of character. The person injured, however, if he does not wish to be considered inhuman, _must_ forgive; his enjoyment of the other's humiliation is insignificant on account of this constraint.

349.

IN A DISPUTE.--When we contradict another's opinion and at the same time develop our own, the constant consideration of the other opinion usually disturbs the natural attitude of our own which appears more intentional, more distinct, and perhaps somewhat exaggerated.

350.

AN ARTIFICE.--He who wants to get another to do something difficult must on no account treat the matter as a problem, but must set forth his plan plainly as the only one possible; and when the adversary's eye betrays objection and opposition he must understand how to break off quickly, and allow him no time to put in a word.

351.

PRICKS OF CONSCIENCE AFTER SOCIAL GATHERINGS.--Why does our conscience prick us after ordinary social gatherings? Because we have treated serious things lightly, because in talking of persons we have not spoken quite justly or have been silent when we should have spoken, because, sometimes, we have not jumped up and run away,--in short, because we have behaved in society as if we belonged to it.

352.

WE ARE MISJUDGED.--He who always listens to hear how he is judged is always vexed. For we are misjudged even by those who are nearest to us ("who know us best"). Even good friends sometimes vent their ill-humour in a spiteful word; and would they be our friends if they knew us rightly? The judgments of the indifferent wound us deeply, because they sound so impartial, so objective almost. But when we see that some one hostile to us knows us in a concealed point as well as we know ourselves, how great is then our vexation!

353.

THE TYRANNY OF THE PORTRAIT.--Artists and statesmen, who out of particular features quickly construct the whole picture of a man or an event, are mostly unjust in demanding that the event or person should afterwards be actually as they have painted it; they demand straightway that a man should be just as gifted, cunning, and unjust as he is in their representation of him.

354.

RELATIVES AS THE BEST FRIENDS.--The Greeks, who knew so well what a friend was, they alone of all peoples have a profound and largely philosophical discussion of friendship; so that it is by them firstly (and as yet lastly) that the problem of the friend has been recognised as worthy of solution,--these same Greeks have designated _relatives_ by an expression which is the superlative of the word "friend." This is inexplicable to me.

355.

MISUNDERSTOOD HONESTY.--When any one quotes himself in conversation ("I then said," "I am accustomed to say"), it gives the impression of presumption; whereas it often proceeds from quite an opposite source; or at least from honesty, which does not wish to deck and adorn the present moment with wit which belongs to an earlier moment.

356.

THE PARASITE.--It denotes entire absence of a noble disposition when a person prefers to live in dependence at the expense of others, usually with a secret bitterness against them, in order only that he may not be obliged to work. Such a disposition is far more frequent in women than in men, also far more pardonable (for historical reasons).

357.

ON THE ALTAR OF RECONCILIATION.--There are circumstances under which one can only gain a point from a person by wounding him and becoming hostile; the feeling of having a foe torments him so much that he gladly seizes the first indication of a milder disposition to effect a reconciliation, and offers on the altar of this reconciliation what was formerly of such importance to him that he would not give it up at any price.

358.

PRESUMPTION IN DEMANDING PITY.--There are people who, when they have been in a rage and have insulted others, demand, firstly, that it shall all be taken in good part; and, secondly, that they shall be pitied because they are subject to such violent paroxysms. So far does human presumption extend.

359.

BAIT.--"Every man has his price"--that is not true. But perhaps every one can be found a bait of one kind or other at which he will snap. Thus, in order to gain some supporters for a cause, it is only necessary to give it the glamour of being philanthropic, noble, charitable, and self-denying--and to what cause could this glamour not be given! It is the sweetmeat and dainty of _their_ soul; others have different ones.

360.

THE ATTITUDE IN PRAISING.--When good friends praise a gifted person he often appears to be delighted with them out of politeness and goodwill, but in reality he feels indifferent. His real nature is quite unmoved towards them, and will not budge a step on that account out of the sun or shade in which it lies; but people wish to please by praise, and it would grieve them if one did not rejoice when they praise a person.

361.

THE EXPERIENCE OF SOCRATES.--If one has become a master in one thing, one has generally remained, precisely thereby, a complete dunce in most other things; but one forms the very reverse opinion, as was already experienced by Socrates. This is the annoyance which makes association with masters disagreeable.

362.

A MEANS OF DEFENCE.--In warring against stupidity, the most just and gentle of men at last become brutal. They are thereby, perhaps, taking the proper course for defence; for the most appropriate argument for a stupid brain is the clenched fist. But because, as has been said, their character is just and gentle, they suffer more by this means of protection than they injure their opponents by it.

363.

CURIOSITY.--If curiosity did not exist, very little would be done for the good of our neighbour. But curiosity creeps into the houses of the unfortunate and the needy under the name of duty or of pity. Perhaps there is a good deal of curiosity even in the much-vaunted maternal love.

364.

DISAPPOINTMENT IN SOCIETY.--One man wishes to be interesting for his opinions, another for his likes and dislikes, a third for his acquaintances, and a fourth for his solitariness--and they all meet with disappointment. For he before whom the play is performed thinks himself the only play that is to be taken into account.

365.

THE DUEL.--It may be said in favour of duels and all affairs of honour that if a man has such susceptible feelings that he does not care to live when So-and-so says or thinks this or that about him; he has a right to make it a question of the death of the one or the other. With regard to the fact that he is so susceptible, it is not at all to be remonstrated with, in that matter we are the heirs of the past, of its greatness as well as of its exaggerations, without which no greatness ever existed. So when there exists a code of honour which lets blood stand in place of death, so that the mind is relieved after a regular duel it is a great blessing, because otherwise many human lives would be in danger. Such an institution, moreover, teaches men to be cautious in their utterances and makes intercourse with them possible.

366.

NOBLENESS AND GRATITUDE.--A noble soul will be pleased to owe gratitude, and will not anxiously avoid opportunities of coming under obligation; it will also be moderate afterwards in the expression of its gratitude: baser souls, on the other hand, are unwilling to be under any obligation, or are afterwards immoderate in their expressions of thanks and altogether too devoted. The latter is, moreover, also the case with persons of mean origin or depressed circumstances; to show _them_ a favour seems to them a miracle of grace.

367.

OCCASIONS OF ELOQUENCE.--In order to talk well one man needs a person who is decidedly and avowedly his superior to talk to, while another can only find absolute freedom of speech and happy turns of eloquence before one who is his inferior. In both cases the cause is the same; each of them talks well only when he talks _sans gêne_--the one because in the presence of something higher he does not feel the impulse of rivalry and competition, the other because he also lacks the same impulse in the presence of something lower. Now there is quite another type of men, who talk well only when debating, with the intention of conquering. Which of the two types is the more aspiring: the one that talks well from excited ambition, or the one that talks badly or not at all from precisely the same motive?

368.

THE TALENT FOR FRIENDSHIP.--Two types are distinguished amongst people who have a special faculty for friendship. The one is ever on the ascent, and for every phase of his development he finds a friend exactly suited to him. The series of friends which he thus acquires is seldom a consistent one, and is sometimes at variance and in contradiction, entirely in accordance with the fact that the later phases of his development neutralise or prejudice the earlier phases. Such a man may jestingly be called a _ladder._ The other type is represented by him who exercises an attractive influence on very different characters and endowments, so that he wins a whole circle of friends; these, however, are thereby brought voluntarily into friendly relations with one another in spite of all differences. Such a man may be called a _circle,_ for this homogeneousness of such different temperaments and natures must somehow be typified in him. Furthermore, the faculty for having good friends is greater in many people than the faculty for being a good friend.

369.

TACTICS IN CONVERSATION.--After a conversation with a person one is best pleased with him I when one has had an opportunity of exhibiting one's intelligence and amiability in all its glory. Shrewd people who wish to impress a person favourably make use of this circumstance, they provide him with the best opportunities for making a good I joke, and so on in conversation. An amusing conversation might be imagined between two very shrewd persons, each wishing to impress the other favourably, and therefore each throwing to the other the finest chances in conversation, which neither of them accepted, so that the conversation on the whole might turn out spiritless and unattractive because each assigned to the other the opportunity of being witty and charming.

370.

DISCHARGE OF INDIGNATION.--The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill-will of another than to fate. His irritated feelings are alleviated by thinking that a person and not a thing is the cause of his failure; for he can revenge himself on persons, but is obliged to swallow down the injuries of fate. Therefore when anything has miscarried with a prince, those about him are accustomed to point out some individual as the ostensible cause, who is sacrificed in the interests of all the courtiers; for otherwise the prince's indignation would vent itself on them all, as he can take no revenge on the Goddess of Destiny herself.

371.

ASSUMING THE COLOURS OF THE ENVIRONMENT.--Why are likes and dislikes so contagious that we can hardly live near a very sensitive person without being filled, like a hogshead, with his _fors_ and _againsts_? In the first place, complete forbearance of judgment is very difficult, and sometimes absolutely intolerable to our vanity; it has the same appearance as poverty of thought and sentiment, or as timidity and unmanliness; and so we are, at least, driven on to take a side, perhaps contrary to our environment, if this attitude gives greater pleasure to our pride. As a rule, however,--and this is the second point,--we are not conscious of the transition from indifference to liking or disliking, but we gradually accustom ourselves to the sentiments of our environment, and because sympathetic agreement and acquiescence are so agreeable, we soon wear all the signs and party-colours of our surroundings.

372.

IRONY.--Irony is only permissible as a pedagogic expedient, on the part of a teacher when dealing with his pupils; its purpose is to humble and to shame, but in the wholesome way that causes good resolutions to spring up and teaches people to show honour and gratitude, as they would to a doctor, to him who has so treated them. The ironical man pretends to be ignorant, and does it so well that the pupils conversing with him are deceived, and in their firm belief in their own superior knowledge they grow bold and expose all their weak points; they lose their cautiousness and reveal themselves as they are,--until all of a sudden the light which they have held up to the teacher's face casts its rays back very humiliatingly upon themselves. Where such a relation, as that between teacher and pupil, does not exist, irony is a rudeness and a vulgar conceit. All ironical writers count on the silly species of human beings, who like to feel Ithemselves superior to all others in common with the author himself, whom they look upon as the ?mouthpiece of their arrogance. Moreover, the habit of irony, like that of sarcasm, spoils the character; lit gradually fosters the quality of a malicious superiority; one finally grows like a snappy dog, that has learnt to laugh as well as to bite.

373.

ARROGANCE.--There is nothing one should so guard against as the growth of the weed called arrogance, which spoils all one's good harvest; for there is arrogance in cordiality, in showing honour, in kindly familiarity, in caressing, in friendly counsel, in acknowledgment of faults, in sympathy for others,--and all these fine things arouse aversion when the weed in question grows up among them. The arrogant man--that is to say, he who desires to appear more than he is _or passes for_--always miscalculates. It is true that he obtains a momentary success, inasmuch as those with whom he is' arrogant generally give him the amount of honour that he demands, owing to fear or for the sake of convenience; but they take a bad revenge for it, inasmuch as they subtract from the value which they hitherto attached to him just as much as he demands above that amount. There is nothing for which men ask to be paid dearer than for humiliation. The arrogant man can make his really great merit so suspicious and small in the eyes of others that they tread on it with dusty feet. If at all, we should only allow ourselves a _proud_ manner where we are quite sure of not being misunderstood and considered as arrogant; as, for instance, with friends and wives. For in social intercourse there is no greater folly than to acquire a reputation for arrogance; it is still worse than not having learnt to deceive politely.

374.

_TÊTE-À-TÊTE_--Private conversation is the perfect conversation, because everything the one' person says receives its particular colouring, its tone, and its accompanying gestures _out of strict consideration for the other person_ engaged in the conversation, it therefore corresponds to what takes place in intercourse by letter, viz., that one and the same person exhibits ten kinds of psychical expression, according as he writes now to this individual and now to that one. In duologue there is only a single refraction of thought; the person conversed with produces it, as the mirror in whom we want to behold our thoughts anew in their finest form. But how is it when there are two or three, or even more persons conversing with one? Conversation then necessarily loses something of its individualising subtlety, different considerations thwart and neutralise each other; the style which pleases one does not suit the taste of another. In intercourse with several individuals a person is therefore to withdraw within himself and represent facts as they are; but he has also to remove from the subjects the pulsating ether of humanity which makes conversation one of the pleasantest things in the world. Listen only to the tone in which those who mingle with whole groups of men are in the habit of speaking; it is as if the fundamental base of all speech were, "It is _myself_; I say this, so make what you will of it!" That is the reason why clever ladies usually leave a singular, painful, and forbidding impression on those who have met them in society; it is the talking to many people, before many people, that robs them of all intellectual amiability and shows only their conscious dependence on themselves, their tactics, and their intention of gaining a public victory in full light; whilst in a private conversation the same ladies become womanly again, and recover their intellectual grace and charm.

375.

POSTHUMOUS FAME.--There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time. But this is an error. In all their sentiments and judgments concerning what is good and beautiful mankind have greatly changed; it is mere fantasy to imagine one's self to be a mile ahead, and that the whole of mankind is coming _our_ way. Besides, a scholar who is misjudged may at present reckon with certainty that his discovery will be made by others, and that, at best, it will be allowed to him later on by some historian that he also already knew this or that but was not in a position to secure the recognition of his knowledge. Not to be recognised, is always interpreted by posterity as lack of power. In short, one should not so readily speak in favour of haughty solitude. There are, however, exceptional cases; but it is chiefly our faults, weakness, and follies that hinder the recognition of our great qualities.

376.

OF FRIENDS.--Just consider with thyself how different are the feelings, how divided are the opinions of even the nearest acquaintances; how even the same opinions in thy friend's mind have quite a different aspect and strength from what they have in thine own; and how manifold are the occasions which arise for misunderstanding and hostile severance. After all this thou wilt say to thyself, "How insecure is the ground upon which all our alliances and friendships rest, how liable to cold downpours and bad weather, how lonely is every creature!" When a person recognises this fact, and, in addition, that all opinions and the nature and strength of them in his fellow-men are just as necessary and irresponsible as their actions; when his eye learns to see this internal necessity of opinions, owing to the indissoluble interweaving of character, occupation, talent, and environment,--he will perhaps get rid of the bitterness and sharpness of the feeling with which the sage exclaimed, "Friends, there are no friends!" Much rather will he make the confession to himself:--Yes, there are friends, but they were drawn towards thee by error and deception concerning thy character; and they must have learnt to be silent in order to remain thy friends; for such human relationships almost always rest on the fact that some few things are never said, are never, indeed, alluded to; but if these pebbles are set rolling friendship follows afterwards and is broken. Are there any who would not be mortally injured if they were to learn what their most intimate friends really knew about them? By getting a knowledge of ourselves, and by looking upon our nature as a changing sphere of opinions and moods, and thereby learning to despise ourselves a little, we recover once more our equilibrium with the rest of mankind. It is true that we have good reason to despise each of our acquaintances, even the greatest of them; but just as good reason to turn this feeling against ourselves. And so we will bear with each other, since we bear with ourselves; and perhaps there will come to each a happier hour, when he will exclaim:

"Friends, there are really no friends!" thus cried
th' expiring old sophist;
"Foes, there is really no foe!"--thus shout I,
the incarnate fool.

SEVENTH DIVISION.

WIFE AND CHILD.

377.

THE PERFECT WOMAN.--The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, and also something much rarer. The natural history of animals furnishes grounds in support of this theory.

378.

FRIENDSHIP AND MARRIAGE.--The best friend will probably get the best wife, because a good marriage is based on talent for friendship.

379.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE PARENTS.--The undissolved dissonances in the relation of the character and sentiments of the parents survive in the nature of the child and make up the history of its inner sufferings.

380.

INHERITED FROM THE MOTHER.--Every one bears within him an image of woman, inherited from his mother: it determines his attitude towards women as a whole, whether to honour, despise, or remain generally indifferent to them.

381.

CORRECTING NATURE.--Whoever has not got a good father should procure one.

382.

FATHERS AND SONS.--Fathers have much to do to make amends for having sons.

383.

THE ERROR OF GENTLEWOMEN.--Gentle-women think that a thing does not really exist when it is not possible to talk of it in society.

384.

A MALE DISEASE.--The surest remedy for the male disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a sensible woman.

385.

A SPECIES OF JEALOUSY.--Mothers are readily jealous of the friends of sons who are particularly successful. As a rule a mother loves _herself_ in her son more than the son.

386.

RATIONAL IRRATIONALITY.--In the maturity of life and intelligence the feeling comes over a man that his father did wrong in begetting him.

387.

MATERNAL EXCELLENCE.--Some mothers need happy and honoured children, some need unhappy ones,--otherwise they cannot exhibit their maternal excellence.

388.

DIFFERENT SIGHS.--Some husbands have sighed over the elopement of their wives, the greater number, however, have sighed because nobody would elope with theirs.

389.

LOVE MATCHES.--Marriages which are contracted for love (so-called love-matches) have error for their father and need (necessity) for their mother.

390.

WOMEN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--Women can enter into friendship with a man perfectly well; but in order to maintain it the aid of a little physical antipathy is perhaps required.

391.

ENNUI.--Many people, especially women, never feel ennui because they have never learnt to work properly.

392.

AN ELEMENT OF LOVE.--In all feminine love something of maternal love also comes to light.

393.

UNITY OF PLACE AND DRAMA.--If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more frequent.

394.

THE USUAL CONSEQUENCES OF MARRIAGE.--All intercourse which does not elevate a person, debases him, and _vice versa;_ hence men usually sink a little when they marry, while women are somewhat elevated. Over-intellectual men require marriage in proportion as they are opposed to it as to a repugnant medicine.

395.

LEARNING TO COMMAND.--Children of unpretentious families must be taught to command, just as much as other children must be taught to obey.

396.

WANTING TO BE IN LOVE.--Betrothed couples who have been matched by convenience often exert themselves _to fall in love,_ to avoid the reproach of cold, calculating expediency. In the same manner those who become converts to Christianity for their advantage exert themselves to become genuinely pious; because the religious cast of countenance then becomes easier to them.

397.

No STANDING STILL IN LOVE.--A musician who _loves_ the slow _tempo_ will play the same pieces ever more slowly. There is thus no standing still in any love.

398.

MODESTY.--Women's modesty usually increases with their beauty.[1]

399.

MARRIAGE ON A GOOD BASIS.--A marriage in which each wishes to realise an individual aim by means of the other will stand well; for instance, when the woman wishes to become famous through the man and the man beloved through the woman.

400.

PROTEUS-NATURE.--Through love women actually become what they appear to be in the imagination of their lovers.

401.

To LOVE AND TO POSSESS.--As a rule women love a distinguished man to the extent that they wish to possess him exclusively. They would gladly keep him under lock and key, if their vanity did not forbid, but vanity demands that he should also appear distinguished before others.

402.

THE TEST OF A GOOD MARRIAGE.--The goodness of a marriage is proved by the fact that it can stand an "exception."

403.

BRINGING ANYONE ROUND TO ANYTHING.--One may make any person so weak and weary by disquietude, anxiety, and excess of work or thought that he no longer resists anything that appears complicated, but gives way to it,--diplomatists and women know this.

404.

PROPRIETY AND HONESTY.--Those girls who mean to trust exclusively to their youthful charms for their provision in life, and whose cunning is further prompted by worldly mothers, have just the same aims as courtesans, only they are wiser and less honest.

405.

MASKS.--There are women who, wherever one examines them, have no inside, but are mere masks. A man is to be pitied who has connection with such almost spectre-like and necessarily unsatisfactory creatures, but it is precisely such women who know how to excite a man's desire most strongly; he seeks for their soul, and seeks evermore.

406.

MARRIAGE AS A LONG TALK.--In entering on a marriage one should ask one's self the question, "Do you think you will pass your time well with this woman till your old age?" All else in marriage is transitory; talk, however, occupies most of the time of the association.

407.

GIRLISH DREAMS.--Inexperienced girls flatter themselves with the notion that it is in their power to make a man happy; later on they learn that it is equivalent to underrating a man to suppose that he needs only a girl to make him happy. Women's vanity requires a man to be something more than merely a happy husband.

408.

THE DYING-OUT OF FAUST AND MARGUERITE.--According to the very intelligent remark of a scholar, the educated men of modern Germany resemble somewhat a mixture of Mephistopheles and Wagner, but are not at all like Faust, whom our grandfathers (in their youth at least) felt agitating within them. To them, therefore,--to continue the remark,--Marguerites are not suited, for two reasons. And because the latter are no longer desired they seem to be dying out.

409.

CLASSICAL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.--For goodness' sake let us not give our classical education to girls! An education which, out of ingenious, inquisitive, ardent youths, so frequently makes--copies of their teacher!

410.

WITHOUT RIVALS.--Women readily perceive in a man whether his soul has already been taken possession of; they wish to be loved without rivals, and find fault with the objects of his ambition, his political tasks, his sciences and arts, if he have a passion for such things. Unless he be distinguished thereby,--then, in the case of a love-relationship between them, women look at the same time for an increase of _their own_ distinction; under such circumstances, they favour the lover.

411.

THE FEMININE INTELLECT.--The intellect of women manifests itself as perfect mastery, presence of mind, and utilisation of all advantages. They transmit it as a fundamental quality to their children, and the father adds thereto the darker background of the will. His influence determines as it were the rhythm and harmony with which the new life is to be performed; but its melody is derived from the mother. For those who know how to put a thing properly: women have intelligence, men have character and passion. This does not contradict the fact that men actually achieve so much more with their intelligence: they have deeper and more powerful impulses; and it is these which carry their understanding (in itself something passive) to such an extent. Women are often silently surprised at the great respect men pay to their character. When, therefore, in the choice of a partner men seek specially for a being of deep and strong character, and women for a being of intelligence, brilliancy, and presence of mind, it is plain that at bottom men seek for the ideal man, and women for the ideal woman,--consequently not for the complement but for the completion of their own excellence.

412.

HESIOD'S OPINION CONFIRMED.--It is a sign of women's wisdom that they have almost always known how to get themselves supported, like drones in a bee-hive. Let us just consider what this meant originally, and why men do not depend upon women for their support. Of a truth it is because masculine vanity and reverence are greater than feminine wisdom; for women have known how to secure for themselves by their subordination the greatest advantage, in fact, the upper hand. Even the care of children may originally have been used by the wisdom of women as an excuse for withdrawing themselves as much as possible from work. And at present they still understand when they are really active (as house-keepers, for instance) how to make a bewildering fuss about it, so that the merit of their activity is usually ten times over-estimated by men.

413.

LOVERS AS SHORT-SIGHTED PEOPLE.--A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love; and whoever has had sufficient imagination to represent a face or form twenty years older, has probably gone through life not much disturbed.

414.

WOMEN IN HATRED.--In a state of hatred women are more dangerous than men; for one thing, because they are hampered by no regard for fairness when their hostile feelings have been aroused; but let their hatred develop unchecked to its utmost consequences; then also, because they are expert in finding sore spots (which every man and every party possess), and pouncing upon them: for which purpose their dagger-pointed intelligence is of good service (whilst men, hesitating at the sight of wounds, are often generously and conciliatorily inclined).

415.

LOVE.--The love idolatry which women practise is fundamentally and originally an intelligent device, inasmuch as they increase their power by all the idealisings of love and exhibit themselves as so much the more desirable in the eyes of men. But by being accustomed for centuries to this exaggerated appreciation of love, it has come to pass that they have been caught in their own net and have forgotten the origin of the device. They themselves are now still more deceived than the men, and on that account also suffer more from the disillusionment which, almost necessarily, enters into the life of every woman--so far, at any rate, as she has sufficient imagination and intelligence to be able to be deceived and undeceived.

416.

THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.--Can women be at all just, when they are so accustomed to love and to be immediately biased for or against? For that reason they are also less interested in things and more in individuals: but when they are interested in things they immediately become their partisans, and thereby spoil their pure, innocent effect. Thus there arises a danger, by no means small, in entrusting politics and certain portions of science to them (history, for instance). For what is rarer than a woman who really knows what science is? Indeed the best of them cherish in their breasts a secret scorn for science, as if they were somehow superior to it. Perhaps all this can be changed in time; but meanwhile it is so.

417.

THE INSPIRATION IN WOMEN'S JUDGMENTS.--The sudden decisions, for or against, which women are in the habit of making, the flashing illumination of personal relations caused by their spasmodic inclinations and aversions,--in short, the proofs of feminine injustice have been invested with a lustre by men who are in love, as if all women had inspirations of wisdom, even without the Delphic cauldron and the laurel wreaths; and their utterances are interpreted and duly set forth as Sibylline oracles for long afterwards. When one considers, however, that for every person and for every cause something can be said in favour of it but equally also something against it, that things are not only two-sided, but also three and four-sided, it is almost difficult to be entirely at fault in such sudden decisions; indeed, it might be said that the nature of things has been so arranged that women should always carry their point.[2]

418.

BEING LOVED.--As one of every two persons in love is usually the one who loves, the other the one who is loved, the belief has arisen that in every love-affair there is a constant amount of love; and that the more of it the one person monopolises the less is left for the other. Exceptionally it happens that the vanity of each of the parties persuades him or her that it is _he_ or _she_ who must be loved; so that both of them wish to be loved: from which cause many half funny, half absurd scenes take place, especially in married life.

419.

CONTRADICTIONS IN FEMININE MINDS.--Owing to the fact that women are so much more personal than objective, there are tendencies included in the range of their ideas which are logically in contradiction to one another; they are accustomed in turn to become enthusiastically fond just of the representatives of these tendencies and accept their systems in the lump; but in such wise that a dead place originates wherever a new personality afterwards gets the ascendancy. It may happen that the whole philosophy in the mind of an old lady consists of nothing but such dead places.

420.

WHO SUFFERS THE MORE?--After a personal dissension and quarrel between a woman and a man the latter party suffers chiefly from the idea of having wounded the other, whilst the former suffers chiefly from the idea of not having wounded the other sufficiently; so she subsequently endeavours by tears, sobs, and discomposed mien, to make his heart heavier.

421.