Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 28

330.

INFLUENCE A PHANTOM, NOT A REALITY.-The man of mark gradually learns that so far as he has influence he is a phantom in other brains, and perhaps he falls into a state of subtle vexation of soul, in which he asks himself whether he must not maintain this phantom of himself for the benefit of his fellow-men.

331.

GIVING AND TAKING.-When one takes away (or antic.i.p.ates) the smallest thing that another possesses, the latter is blind to the fact that he has been given something greater, nay, even the greatest thing.

332.

GOOD PLOUGHLAND.-All rejection and negation betoken a deficiency in fertility. If we were good ploughland, we should allow nothing to be unused or lost, and in every thing, event, or person we should welcome manure, rain, or sunshine.

333.

INTERCOURSE AS AN ENJOYMENT.-If a man renounces the world and intentionally lives in solitude, he may come to regard intercourse with others, which he enjoys but seldom, as a special delicacy.

334.

TO KNOW HOW TO SUFFER IN PUBLIC.-We must advertise our misfortunes and from time to time heave audible sighs and show visible marks of impatience. For if we could let others see how a.s.sured and happy we are in spite of pain and privation, how envious and ill-tempered they would become at the sight!-But we must take care not to corrupt our fellow-men; besides, if they knew the truth, they would levy a heavy toll upon us. At any rate our public misfortune is our private advantage.

335.

WARMTH ON THE HEIGHTS.-On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognises the full import of this simile.

336.

TO WILL THE GOOD AND BE CAPABLE OF THE BEAUTIFUL.-It is not enough to practise the good one must have willed it, and, as the poet says, include the G.o.dhead in our will. But the beautiful we must not will, we must be capable of it, in innocence and blindness, without any psychical curiosity. He that lights his lantern to find perfect men should remember the token by which to know them. They are the men who always act for the sake of the good and in so doing always attain to the beautiful without thinking of the beautiful. Many better and n.o.bler men, from impotence or from want of beauty in their souls, remain unrefreshing and ugly to behold, with all their good will and good works. They rebuff and injure even virtue through the repulsive garb in which their bad taste arrays her.

337.

DANGER OF RENUNCIATION.-We must beware of basing our lives on too narrow a foundation of appet.i.te. For if we renounce all the joys involved in positions, honours, a.s.sociations, revels, creature comforts, and arts, a day may come when we perceive that this repudiation has led us not to wisdom but to satiety of life.

338.

FINAL OPINION ON OPINIONS.-Either we should hide our opinions or hide ourselves behind our opinions. Whoever does otherwise, does not know the way of the world, or belongs to the order of pious fire-eaters.

339.

"_GAUDEAMUS IGITUR._"-Joy must contain edifying and healing forces for the moral nature of man. Otherwise, how comes it that our soul, as soon as it basks in the sunshine of joy, unconsciously vows to itself, "I will be good!" "I will become perfect!" and is at once seized by a premonition of perfection that is like a shudder of religious awe?

340.

TO ONE WHO IS PRAISED.-So long as you are praised, believe that you are not yet on your own course but on that of another.

341.

LOVING THE MASTER.-The apprentice and the master love the master in different ways.

342.