“No, surely it’s not as bad as that,” said Duclari, “that’s a little too strong!”
“That only appears so to you because I have made the comparison a little brief and brusque. We must of course mentally wrap up a little that ‘He is a thief.’ The gist, however, of the parable remains true. When we are compelled to admit in a person certain qualities that give him a claim to esteem, respect, or awe, then it gives us a pleasure to discover by the side of those qualities something that relieves us partly or wholly from the tribute thus owed. ‘To such a poet one would bow the head, but . . . he beats his wife!’ You see, we gladly use the black marks of the woman as a pretext to be allowed to keep our head erect, and in the end we are even quite pleased that he beats the poor thing, although otherwise this would naturally be a horrible act. As soon as we have to recognize that someone possesses qualities that render him worthy of the honour of a pedestal, as soon as we can no longer deny his claim to this without passing for ignorant, unfeeling, or jealous . . . then at last we say: ‘Right, put him on it!’ But already during the process of putting him there, and while he himself is under the delusion that we are enchanted with his eminence, we are making the noose in the lasso that shall serve at the first favourable opportunity to drag him down. The more frequent the mutation among the proprietors of pedestals, the greater becomes the chance for others to get a turn also; and this is so true that, from habit as well as for practice—just as a hunter who fires at crows which after all he does not intend to pick up—we also like to drag down those statues whose pedestal we shall never have the chance of occupying. Kappelman, who feeds himself with sauerkraut and small beer, seeks elevation in the lament: ‘Alexander was not great . . . he was intemperate,’ although for Kappelman there is not the slightest chance of ever competing with Alexander in world-conquest.
“However this may be, I am certain that many would never have conceived the idea of thinking General Vandamme so brave, if his
