273.
Praise.—Here is some one who, you perceive, wishes to praise you: you bite your lips and brace up your heart: Oh, that that cup might go hence! But it does not, it comes! let us therefore drink the sweet impudence of the panegyrist, let us overcome the disgust and profound contempt that we feel for the innermost substance of his praise, let us assume a look of thankful joy—for he wished to make himself agreeable to us! And now that it is all over we know [pg 255] that he feels greatly exalted; he has been victorious over us. Yes, and also over himself, the villain!—for it was no easy matter for him to wring this praise from himself.
274.
The Rights and Privileges of Man.—We human beings are the only creatures who, when things do not go well with us, can blot ourselves out like a clumsy sentence,—whether we do so out of honour for humanity or pity for it, or on account of the aversion we feel towards ourselves.
275.
The Transformed Being.—Now he becomes virtuous; but only for the sake of hurting others by being so. Don't pay so much attention to him.
276.
How Often! How Unexpected!—How may married men have some morning awakened to the fact that their young wife is dull, although she thinks quite the contrary! not to speak of those wives whose flesh is willing but whose intellect is weak!
277.
Warm and Cold Virtues.—Courage is sometimes the consequence of cold and unshaken resolution, and at other times of a fiery and reckless élan. For these two kinds of courage there is only the one name!—but how different, nevertheless, [pg 256] are cold virtues and warm virtues! and the man would be a fool who could suppose that “goodness” could only be brought about by warmth, and no less a fool he who would only attribute it to cold. The truth is that mankind has found both warm and cold courage very useful, yet not often enough to prevent it from setting them both in the category of precious stones.
278.
The gracious Memory.—A man of high rank will do well to develop a gracious memory, that is, to note all the good qualities of people and remember them particularly; for in this way he holds them in an agreeable dependence. A man may also act in this way towards himself: whether or not he has a gracious memory determines in the end the superiority, gentleness, or distrust with which he observes his own inclinations and intentions, and finally even the nature of these inclinations and intentions.
279.
Wherein we become Artists.—He who makes an idol of some one endeavours to justify himself in his own eyes by idealising this person: in other words, he becomes an artist that he may have a clear conscience. When he suffers he does not suffer from his ignorance, but from the lie he has told himself to make himself ignorant. The inmost misery and desire of such a man—and all passionate lovers are included in this category—cannot be exhausted by normal means.
280.
Childlike.—Those who live like children—those who have not to struggle for their daily bread, and do not think that their actions have any ultimate signification—remain childlike.
281.
Our Ego desires Everything.—It would seem as if men in general were only inspired by the desire to possess: languages at least would permit of this supposition, for they view past actions from the standpoint that we have been put in possession of something—“I have spoken, struggled, conquered”—as if to say, I am now in possession of my word, my struggle, my victory. How greedy man appears in this light! he cannot even let the past escape him: he even wishes to have it still!
282.
Danger in Beauty.—This woman is beautiful and intelligent: alas, how much more intelligent she would have become if she had not been beautiful!
283.
Domestic and Mental Peace.—Our habitual mood depends upon the mood in which we maintain our habitual entourage.
284.
New Things as Old Ones.—Many people seem irritated when something new is told them: [pg 258] they feel the ascendancy which the news has given to the person who has learnt it first.
285.
What are the Limits of the Ego.—The majority of people take under their protection, as it were, something that they know, as if the fact of knowing it was sufficient in itself to make it their property. The acquisitiveness of the egoistic feeling has no limits: Great men speak as if they had behind them the whole of time, and had placed themselves at the head of this enormous host; and good women boast of the beauty of their children, their clothes, their dog, their physician, or their native town, but the only thing they dare not say is, “I am all that.” Chi non ha non è—as they say in Italy.