Volume Ii Part 29 (1/2)
ALL-TOO-BEAUTIFUL AND HUMAN.-”Nature is too beautiful for thee, poor mortal,” one often feels. But now and then, at a profound contemplation of all that is human, in its fulness, vigour, tenderness, and complexity, I have felt as if I must say, in all humility, ”Man also is too beautiful for the contemplation of man!” Nor did I mean the moral man alone, but every one.
343.
REAL AND PERSONAL ESTATE.-When life has treated us in true robber fas.h.i.+on, and has taken away all that it could of honour, joys, connections, health, and property of every kind, we perhaps discover in the end, after the first shock, that we are richer than before. For now we know for the first time what is so peculiarly ours that no robber hand can touch it, and perhaps, after all the plunder and devastation, we come forward with the airs of a mighty real estate owner.
344.
INVOLUNTARILY IDEALISED.-The most painful feeling that exists is finding out that we are always taken for something higher than we really are. For we must thereby confess to ourselves, ”There is in you some element of fraud-your speech, your expression, your bearing, your eye, your dealings; and this deceitful something is as necessary as your usual honesty, but constantly destroys its effect and its value.”
345.
IDEALIST AND LIAR.-We must not let ourselves be tyrannised even by that finest faculty of idealising things: otherwise, truth will one day part company from us with the insulting remark: ”Thou arch-liar, what have I to do with thee?”
346.
BEING MISUNDERSTOOD.-When one is misunderstood generally, it is impossible to remove a particular misunderstanding. This point must be recognised, to save superfluous expenditure of energy in self-defence.
347.
THE WATER-DRINKER SPEAKS.-Go on drinking your wine, which has refreshed you all your life-what affair is it of yours if I have to be a water-drinker? Are not wine and water peaceable, brotherly elements, that can live side by side without mutual recriminations?
348.
FROM CANNIBAL COUNTRY.-In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many. Choose which you prefer.