“Well, I make him, and say it.”
“Do you know what you have now said? You have said that you, Duclari, are thoroughly acquainted with theory. I am not a bit better. Believe me, we are wrong to be so angry with one who is very bad, for the good ones amongst us are very near the bad. Suppose we call perfection 0, and take 100 degrees to be bad, how very wrong we are then, who fluctuate between 98 and 99, to call shame on a person who stands at 101. And still I believe that many do not attain the 100th degree for want of good qualities, courage, for instance, to be quite what 1 is.”
“At what degree do I stand, Max?”
“I want a magnifying-glass for the subdivisions, Tine.”
“I object,” cried Verbrugge,—“no, Madam! considering your proximity to the 0,—no, functionaries are suspended, a child is lost, a General is accused.…”
“But where’s the story?”
“Tine, take care that next time there is something in the house. No, Verbrugge, you will not get ‘the story’ until I have been a little time longer on my hobby-horse, on the spirit of contradiction. I said every man sees in [[211]]his fellow-creature a sort of rival. One must not always blame what is but too obvious, therefore, we like to exalt a good quality excessively, to make the bad quality (which is properly the only thing we want to reveal) the more obvious, without displaying the appearance of partiality. If any one comes to me complaining that I have called him a thief, when I have also called his daughter a lovely girl, then I reply: ‘How can you be so angry since I have called your daughter a lovely girl?’ Do you see, I win both ways. Each of us is a grocer; I take away his customers, who will not buy raisins of a thief,—and at the same time, it is said that I am a good man, because I praise the daughter of a rival in business.”
“No, it is not so bad,” said Duclari; “that is going much too far.”
“You think so, because I made the comparison a little short and blunt. You must mitigate it a little. But if we must indeed acknowledge that somebody is in the possession of a quality which merits esteem, respect, or credit, then we are pleased to discover, near this quality, something which releases us in part or altogether of this tribute.
“To such a poet we should bow, but … he beats his wife. You see, then, we like to use the black and blue of this wife as a motive to keep our backs straight; and in the end we are pleased that he beats the poor creature,—a practice which in any other case we should condemn. If we must acknowledge that somebody possesses qualities [[212]]that allow him the honour of a statue, if we can no longer deny his claims thereto without being thought ignorant, insensible, or jealous, then we say, ‘Well: set him up!’ But already, while mounting him upon the pedestal, and while he himself still thinks that we are full of admiration of his excellence, we have already made the noose in the lasso, that is intended, on the first favourable opportunity, to pull him down. The greater the changes among the occupiers of pedestals to have a turn too, and this so true, that we from habit, and for exercise, like a sportsman who shoots crows which he does not bag, like to pull down even these statues, whose foot-piece never can be mounted by us. If Kappelman lives on sauerkraut and hard beer, he likes to say: ‘Alexander was not great … he was intemperate,’ whilst there exists for Kappelman not the least chance of rivalry with Alexander in conquering the world. How this may be, I am sure that many never would have the idea that General Van Damme was so very brave, if his bravery could not have served as a vehicle for the always added: ‘but … his morality!’ And at the same time, that this immorality would not have been much thought of by many, who were not themselves so very invulnerable in this respect, if it had not been wanted to counterbalance his renown for prowess, which disturbed the slumbers of some. One quality he possessed in a very high degree—energy. What he intended to happen did generally [[213]]happen. You see, however, I have immediately an anti-thesis ready—but in the choice of the means he was very free, and, as Van der Palm[4] has said, as I believe unjustly, of Napoleon, ‘Obstacles of morality never arrested him,’ and then it is certainly easier to attain your aim than when you think yourself bound by such rule.