545
But we do not believe you.—You would like to pose as discerners of men, but you shall not pass as such. Do you fancy that we do not notice that you pretend to be more experienced, deeper, more passionate, more perfect than you really are, as decidedly as we notice in you painter a presumptuousness even in the way of using his brash ; in you musician by the way he introduces his theme a desire to set it off for higher than it really is? Have you ever experienced it yourselves a history, wild commotions, earthquakes, deep, long sadness, fleeting happiness? Have you been foolish with great and little fools? Have you really borne the weal and woe of good people? And also the woe and peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then speak of morality, but not otherwise !
546
Slave and idealist.—The follower of Epictetus would probably not suit the taste of those who are now striving after the ideal. The constant tension of one’s nature ; the indefatigable inward glance; the reserved, cautious, incommunicativeness of the eye if ever it gazed on the outer world: and, to crown it all, his silence or laconic speech ; all these are characteristics of the severest fortitude—what would our idealists, who above all are desirous of expansion, care for all this? Besides, he is not fanatical, he loathes the display and vainglory of our idealists;
