OF GIVING VIRTUE IO3
Verily, I believe I have found you out, my dis- ciples : ye seek like me after giving virtue. What could ye have in common with cats and wolves ?
Your thirst is to become sacrifices and gifts your- selves : hence it is that ye thirst to heap all riches into your soul.
Unsatisfied your soul seeketh after treasures and trinkets because your virtue is ever unsatisfied in willing to give away.
Ye compel all things to come unto you and into you, in order that they may flow back from your well as gifts of your love.
Verily, such a giving love must become a robber as regardeth all values; but I call that selfishness healthy and holy :
There is another selfishness, a very poor one, a starving one which ever seeketh to steal, the selfish- ness of the sickly, sickly selfishness.
With a thief's eye it looketh at all that glittereth ; with the craving of hunger it measureth him who hath plenty to eat; and it ever stealeth round the table of givers.
Disease speaketh in that craving, and invisible degeneration; of a sick body speaketh the thief-like craving of that selfishness.
Tell me, my brethren : what regard we as the bad and the worst thing? Is it not degeneration 1 ? And we always suspect degeneration wherever the giving soul is lacking.
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