Consider.—The man who is being punished is no longer he who has done the deed. He is always the scapegoat.
253.
Appearance.—Alas! what must be best and most resolutely proved is appearance itself; for only too many people lack eyes to observe it. But it is so tiresome!
254.
Those who Anticipate.—What distinguishes poetic natures, but is also a danger for them, is their imagination, which exhausts itself in advance: which anticipates what will happen or what may happen, which enjoys and suffers in advance, and which at the final moment of the event or the action is already fatigued. Lord Byron, who was only too familiar with this, wrote in his diary: “If ever [pg 244] I have a son he shall choose a very prosaic profession—that of a lawyer or a pirate.”
255.
Conversation on Music.—
A. What do you say to that music?
B. It has overpowered me, I can say nothing about it. Listen! there it is beginning again.
A. All the better! This time let us do our best to overpower it. Will you allow me to add a few words to this music? and also to show you a drama which perhaps at your first hearing you did not wish to observe?