466.
A Loss of Renown.—What an advantage it is to be able to speak as a stranger to mankind! When they take away our anonymity, and make us famous, the gods deprive us of “half our virtue.”
467.
Doubly Patient.—“By doing this you will hurt many people.”—I know that, and I also know [pg 332] that I shall have to suffer for it doubly: in the first place out of pity for their suffering, and secondly from the revenge they will take on me. But in spite of this I cannot help doing what I do.
468.
The Kingdom of Beauty is Greater.—We move about in nature, cunning and cheerful, in order that we may surprise everything in the beauty peculiar to it; we make an effort, whether in sunshine or under a stormy sky, to see a distant part of the coast with its rocks, bays, and olive and pine trees under an aspect in which it achieves its perfection and consummation. Thus also we should walk about among men as their discoverers and explorers, meting out to them good and evil in order that we may unveil the peculiar beauty which is seen with some in the sunshine, in others under thunder-clouds, or with others again only in twilight and under a rainy sky.
Are we then forbidden to enjoy the evil man like some savage landscape which possesses its own bold and daring lines and luminous effects, while this same man, so long as he behaves well, and in conformity with the law, appears to us to be an error of drawing, and a mere caricature which offends us like a defect in nature?—Yes, this is forbidden: for as yet we have only been permitted to seek beauty in anything that is morally good,—and this is sufficient to explain why we have found so little and have been compelled to look for beauty without either flesh or bones!—in the same way as [pg 333] evil men are familiar with innumerable kinds of happiness which the virtuous never dream of, we may also find among them innumerable types of beauty, many of them as yet undiscovered.
469.
The Inhumanity of the Sage.—The heavy and grinding progress of the sage, who in the words of the Buddhist song, “Wanders lonely like the rhinoceros,” now and again stands in need of proofs of a conciliatory and softened humanity, and not only proofs of those accelerated steps, those polite and sociable witticisms; not only of humour and a certain self-mockery, but likewise of contradictions and occasional returns to the predominating inconsistencies. In order that he may not resemble the heavy roller that rolls along like fate, the sage who wishes to teach must take advantage of his defects, and utilise them for his own adornment; and when saying “despise me” he will implore permission to be the advocate of a presumptuous truth.
This sage wishes to lead you to the mountains, and he will perhaps endanger your life: therefore as the price of his enjoyment he willingly authorises you to take your revenge either before or afterwards on such a guide. Do you remember what thoughts came into your head when he once led you to a gloomy cavern over a slippery path? Your distrustful heart beat rapidly, and said inwardly, “This guide might surely do something better than crawl about here! he is one of those idle [pg 334] people who are full of curiosity—is it not doing him too much honour to appear to attach any value at all to him by following him?”