339.
“Gaudeamus Igitur.”—Joy must contain edifying and healing forces for the moral nature of man. Otherwise, how comes it that our soul, as soon as it basks in the sunshine of joy, unconsciously vows to itself, “I will be good!” “I will become perfect!” and is at once seized by a premonition of perfection that is like a shudder of religious awe?
340.
To One who is Praised.—So long as you are praised, believe that you are not yet on your own course but on that of another.
341.
Loving the Master.—The apprentice and the master love the master in different ways.
342.
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 fashion, 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.