Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 20

231.

HUMANITY OF FRIENDs.h.i.+P AND COMRADEs.h.i.+P.-"If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right,"(16) that feeling is the hall-mark of humanity in intimate intercourse, and without that feeling every friends.h.i.+p, every band of apostles or disciples, sooner or later becomes a fraud.

232.

THE PROFOUND.-Men of profound thought appear to themselves in intercourse with others like comedians, for in order to be understood they must always simulate superficiality.

233.

FOR THE SCORNERS OF "HERD-HUMANITY."-He who regards human beings as a herd, and flies from them as fast as he can, will certainly be caught up by them and gored upon their horns.

234.

THE MAIN TRANSGRESSION AGAINST THE VAIN.-In society, he who gives another an opportunity of favourably setting forth his knowledge, sentiments, and experience sets himself above him. Unless he is felt by the other to be a superior being without limitation, he is guilty of an attack upon his vanity, while what he aimed at was the gratification of the other man's vanity.

235.

DISAPPOINTMENT.-When a long life of action distinguished by speeches and writings gives publicity to a man's personality, personal intercourse with him is generally disappointing on two grounds. Firstly, one expects too much from a brief period of intercourse (namely, all that the thousand and one opportunities of life can alone bring out). Secondly, no recognised person gives himself the trouble to woo recognition in individual cases.

He is too careless, and we are at too high a tension.

236.

TWO SOURCES OF KINDNESS.-To treat all men with equal good-humour, and to be kind without distinction of persons, may arise as much from a profound contempt for mankind as from an ingrained love of humanity.

237.

THE WANDERER IN THE MOUNTAINS TO HIMSELF.-There are certain signs that you have gone farther and higher. There is a freer, wider prospect before you, the air blows cooler yet milder in your face (you have unlearned the folly of confounding mildness with warmth), your gait is more firm and vigorous, courage and discretion have waxed together. On all these grounds your journey may now be more lonely and in any case more perilous than heretofore, if indeed not to the extent believed by those who from the misty valley see you, the roamer, striding on the mountains.

238.

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.-I admit that my head is set wrong on my neck only, for every other man, as is well known, knows better than I what I should do or leave alone. The only one who cannot help me is myself, poor beggar! Are we not all like statues on which false heads have been placed? Eh, dear neighbour?-Ah no; you, just you, are the exception!

239.

CAUTION.-We must either not go about at all with people who are lacking in the reverence for personalities, or inexorably fetter them beforehand with the manacles of convention.

240.

THE WISH TO APPEAR VAIN.-In conversation with strangers or little-known acquaintances, to express only selected thoughts, to speak of one's famous acquaintances, and important experiences and travels, is a sign that one is not proud, or at least would not like to appear proud. Vanity is the polite mask of pride.

241.

GOOD FRIENDs.h.i.+P.-A good friends.h.i.+p arises when the one man deeply respects the other, more even than himself; loves him also, though not so much as himself; and finally, to facilitate intercourse, knows how to add the delicate bloom and veneer of intimacy, but at the same time wisely refrains from a true, real intimacy, from the confounding of _meum_ and _tuum_.

242.

FRIENDS AS GHOSTS.-If we change ourselves vitally, our friends, who have not changed, become ghosts of our own past: their voice sounds shadowy and dreadful to us, as if we heard our own voice speaking, but younger, harder, less mellow.

243.