and, in the public life of Europe, assumed the part of spectators and political moralists.
For Napoleon, a mere village or two were a sufficient stake for which to set Europe ablaze. With material means, he built up a political society that soon crumbled away. Had the French been by temperament lotus-eating supermen, would they have followed him? They too would have answered him with the words—
“Le monde se fait lui-même.
Il mondo va da sè.”
The victories of fourteen years could not make a Buonapartist Europe.
What subsists of the Superman’s adventure? It had been just as well for him, had he stood on the edge of the glacier of the Plaine-Morte, withstanding temptation, though he had thereby shorn Elba and St. Helena of their title to fame.
The bent of the mountaineer’s mind is turned inwards, towards the education of self. As a superman he pits himself against nature, to man he is kind and just. He is the lotus-eater who would forget the things, the seeking after which would turn him away from self tuition.
He is a kind of Marcus Aurelius who does the share allotted to him in the common task, and then withdraws into his higher self, preserving a kindly interest in those who have built up no such upper chambers.
That sort of man is not an adept at self-sacrifice, because sacrifice is the opposite of education. If he entirely gave himself away, he would have no inner garden left to cultivate, and in which to plant his own vine and sit under his own fig-tree. But if you need not expect him to die for you, or live for you, neither does he expect you to do the like on his behalf. Mountaineers are known to help each other when their lives are in danger in cases of Alpine peril. In self-love they practice self-reliance. “Exercise thyself” would be their motto.