no reason to fear it; he does not stand in need of society, unless for the purpose of from time to time more tenderly to embrace his solitude; he finds in the dead compensation for the living and even reparation for friends: that is, in the best who ever lived. Let us consider whether it is the opposite desires and habits that lave made life expensive and consequently arduous, often even unbearable. In another sense, however, the thinker's life is more expensive, for nothing seems good enough for him; and it would indeed be intolerable to be deprived of the best.
567
In the fiell.—”We ought to take the things more cheerfully than they deserve; especially since, for a very long period, we have taken them more seriously than they deserved." Thus speaks the brave soldier of knowledge.
568
Poet and bird.—Phœnix, the bird, showed to the poet a glowing scroll which was burning to ashes. “Be not alarmed,” he said, “it is your work! It bears not the spirit of the age, much less the spirit of those who are against the age: therefore it must be burnt. But this is a good sign. There is many a dawn of day.”
