OF INVOLUNTARY BLISS 23!
tion of my thoughts and this morning light of my highest hope !
Companions once the creator sought for, and chil- dren of his hope. And lo ! it was found that he could not find them unless he would create them himself.
Thus am I in the middle of my work, going unto my children and returning from them. For the sake of his children Zarathustra must complete himself.
For from the bottom one loveth nothing but one's child and work ; and where there is great love unto one's self, it is the sign of child-bearing. Thus I found it.
Still my .children flourish in their first spring, standing close together and shaken together by the winds, the trees of my garden and of my best soil.
And, verily ! Where such trees stand close unto each other, there are blissful islands !
But one day I will take them out of their soil and plant each of them alone, that he may learn loneli- ness and defiance and caution.
Gnarled and crooked and with hardness that bend- eth, he shall stand then by the sea, a living light- house of life undestroyable.
There where the storms hustle down into the sea, and the snout of the mountains drinketh water, each of them shall one day have his day-watches and night- watches, for the sake of his trial and recognition.
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