3. States and diamonds are in these days, when they have stains, cut up into little ones; and as
4. Men in great states and bees in great hives suffer a loss of courage and warmth; accordingly now-a-days they join to small countries other small countries, as they do to beehives colony-hives.
5. Man takes his suffering for that of humanity, as the bees take the dropping of their bee-stand, when the sun already shines out again, for rain, and stay in-doors.
6. But he commits daily a lesser error: he regards as an eternity (that Aristotelian Unity of Time to the drama—of Existence) at first his present hour,—then his youth,—then his life,—then his century,—then the duration of the globe,—then that of the sun,—then that of the heavens,—then (this is the least error) time itself....
7. There are in man, in the beginning and at the end, as in books, two blank bookbinder's leaves,—childhood and old age; and so, too, in the Dog-Post-Days: see the end of this day and the beginning of the next.
FIFTH INTERCALARY DAY.
Continuation of the Register of Extra-Sheets.
K.
Cold.[[227]]—In our age decrease of stoicism and increase of egotism are found side by side. The former covers its treasures and germs with ice; the latter is itself ice. So, in physics, mountains wear away, and glaciers increase.