Part 7

=My Caricature.=--The teacher said: "Men often appear in our lives as though they were sent; we do not know why they interfere with our destiny; they themselves perhaps do not know. When I was a young man who gave promise of a future, which I had not fulfilled, I received as a colleague in my work a man whom I at once felt to be antipathetic to me, and who hated me. But he sought me, drew me out, and compelled me to drink, although I was not exactly difficult to persuade. He drank himself terribly, and often I thought he wished to make me drink myself to death. When half-intoxicated, he always made personal remarks on me, both flattering and critical. He also appeared as a charlatan, professing to know and prophesy my destiny. This sometimes attracted me, and sometimes repelled me.

"Finally, on one occasion when intoxicated, he attacked me before others, and called me 'a humbug who would come to nothing.' I was at that time fully conscious of my vocation as author; excited by the attack, and being partially in liquor, I made a presumptuous assertion that I would be 'great.' Then the man fell in a rage and swore by h--l that I should not be great. After this our ways divided. My friends noticed it, and asked, 'Do you not go about any more with your caricature?' 'What do you mean by that?' I asked. 'His face was really a caricature of yours.' And so it was.

"Two years afterwards I emerged from the ruck, and remember that my thoughts turned back to the mysterious person who had interested himself in my destiny. Somewhat later I heard that the man had died at twenty-seven years of age under peculiar circumstances. He was standing on a mountain in the evening of Midsummer Day when he had a stroke. 'He flew asunder like a goblin in the sunlight,' I said jocosely.

"This man looked like a Hun or a death's-head. He was born in the seventh month, and preserved by being wrapped in wadding and laid in a corner of the tiled stove. But that explains nothing perhaps?"

=The Inexplicable.=--The teacher continued: "He had, however, a peculiar influence over people, and that not only because he flattered them. I saw him when he was twenty-five years old talking with our foremost statesman, who was then fifty. The widely experienced, sceptical politician listened to the ill-dressed unwashed man, flushed with wine, who almost monopolised the talk. He claimed an authoritative knowledge of all subjects, teemed with facts and figures, alluded to all prominent men as old acquaintances, was well versed in family chronicles and political intrigues. 'Where did he get all that?' I asked someone. 'I don't know, but he is a remarkable man with great influence,' was the answer. In addition to his other characteristics I can mention this: with all his coarseness he had traits of sensitiveness. He wept when he read of the cruelties in the Russo-Turkish war. He loved beautiful poetry. He had a chivalrous enthusiasm for women. He gave out his money generously, but when he was tipsy he was stingy. Demons plagued him, and he used to roam in the woods alone; but he always smashed his top-hat first. One could see into his nostrils, and, when he laughed, all his back teeth could be counted. He always wore too long trousers on which he trod, for he was in the habit of walking on his heels. He was beardless like Attila, because his cheeks simply consisted of nerves.

"But what had he to do with my destiny, and whence sprang his boundless hatred for me? It is inexplicable, like so much else."

=Old-time Religion.=--The pupil said: "I have heard, I have thought; now I will speak. I believe in Christianity as a world-historical fact, with which a new era has begun and proceeds. I believe that all nations will one day bow the knee in the name of Jesus Christ. Every time that the pagans gain the upper hand, I will regard it as a test, and not immediately believe that God is with them against His own.

"But let us have a simple, cheerful Christianity which gathers all to the Sunday festival. Regard it as a misuse of God's name to have religious services every day. Simplify the dogmas and keep them flexible so that all may find a place in them. Shorten the services; let praise, thanks, and worship predominate, and let the sermon, which should be only twenty minutes long, be subordinate. The preacher should stick to his text, and not make personal allusions like a journalist. Not till that is done will one be able to talk of 'assemblies,' of national festivals like the Pan-Athenæan and Olympian games.

"But it is madness to put pagans at the head of a Christian State as teachers, educators, or officials. That is not tolerance, but tomfoolery. That is making the goat the gardener, setting the foe in the fortress, playing the coward before public opinion, and mere weakness.

"There will come a day in which the name 'Christian' will be a title of honour and a diploma of nobility. To say 'I am a Christian' is equivalent to saying 'I am a Roman citizen.' He who dares to call himself a pagan or an atheist, will be regarded as a blockhead, an old-fashioned ass, a conservative reactionary, a stick-in-the-mud."

=The Seduced Become Seducers.=--The pupil continued: "The reason why it has been so hard for me and many others to become really Christian, is that we are all directly descended from the pagans. We were not acclimatised in the Christian atmosphere, but liable to wild impulses; our flesh was too coarse to endure renunciation and restraint. We had been educated in the evolutionary ape-theory, and been taught that man belongs to the department of zoology and not that of anthropology. We had also been told that the physical process that precedes the New Birth of the soul, which is called conversion from evil, was neurasthenia, and should be treated with warm baths or bromkali. Veterinary doctors held professorships of philosophy and introduced zoology as a compulsory subject in priests' examinations. The servants of the Lord learnt that religion was a deposit from the tertiary period, that animals were more religious than man, and that man had created God. The seducer of our youth taught us that the Life of Jesus was a lubricous novel, that the doctrine of the Bible regarding Christ simply amounted to this--that He was a prominent Galilæan; and finally, that the superman was the bandit who may commit any outrage against others, provided he can prove a false alibi and has no witnesses.

"It was a terrible period which recalled that of the Roman emperors, and like that, heralded the arrival of Christianity. We, who had been seduced, then became seducers. But we thank God that no harm was done. Everything serves, and we had to serve as a terrifying example. There is always something.

=Large-hearted Christianity.=--"But we ought not to frighten men with Christianity, nor become hair-splitters. Let faith be a uniting bond to lead us onward, let faith be hope in a better life after this, a connecting-link with that which is higher. Let the fruits of faith be seen to be humanity, resignation, mercifulness. But don't go and count how many glasses of whisky your neighbour drinks; don't call him a hypocrite if he once in a while gives way to the flesh, or if he is angry and says hard words. Don't ask how often he goes to church; don't spy on his words, if in an access of ill-humour he speaks otherwise than he would. You cannot see whether in solitude he does not regret it and chastens himself. A white lie or the embellishment of a story is not a deadly sin; an impropriety can be so atoned for by imprisonment that it ought to be forgotten. Do not secede from the Church because of some dogmas which you do not understand. Don't form a sect with the idea of raising yourself to the rank of shepherd, instead of forming part of the flock. One should have a large-hearted Christianity for daily use, and a stricter one for festival days.

"Don't talk about religion. It is too good for that.... Virtue consists in striving, even when it does not always succeed."

"The noble Spirit now is free And saved from evil scheming, Whoer'er aspires unweariedly Is not beyond redeeming. And if he feels the grace of Love That from on high is given, The blessed hosts that wait above Shall welcome him to heaven." (_Faust_, Part II.)

=Reconnection with the Aërial Wire.=--The pupil spoke: "You said once that the tramcar comes to a standstill if it loses connection with the aërial wire. I know that very well. Would that my friends who are atheists and pagans knew what a relief it is to find the connection again. It is like diving in crystal-clear sea-water after perspiring in the heat of the dog-days on a dusty high-road. The heart grows light; the systematic ill-luck ceases; one has some success, one's undertakings prosper, one can sleep at night, and neurasthenia ceases. I remember how, after a night of debauchery, the most beautiful landscape at sunrise looked ghastly; while after a night of quiet sleep the same scene looked paradisal.

"When we gain the certainty, and the belief founded on certainty, that life is continued on the other side, then we find it easier on this one, and do not hunt after trifles till we are weary. Then we discover the divine light-heartedness of which Goethe speaks, which finds expression in a certain contempt of honours and distinction, promotion and money. We become more in-sensible to blows and abuse. Everything goes more softly and smoothly. However dark the surroundings may be, we become self-luminous so to speak, and carry the little pocket-lamp hope with us."

=The Art of Conversion.=--The pupil continued: "Plato describes earthly life as follows: 'Men sit in a cavern with their backs towards the light. Therefore they only see the shadows or simulacra of what passes in front of the cavern. Whoever hits on the brilliant idea of turning round, sees the originals, the realities in themselves, the light.'

"So simple is it! Only to turn round, or be converted, in a word. But it is not necessary on that account to become a monk, ascetic, or hermit. I almost agree with Luther that faith is everything. Our deeds lag far behind, and need only consist in refraining from all deliberate evil. As a beginning, one may be content with not stealing, lying, or bearing false witness. If we have greater claims and wish to train ourselves into supermen, we may. But if we do not succeed, we should not throw the whole system over-board, but ceaselessly commence anew, never despair, try to smile at our vain efforts, be patient with ourselves, and believe good of God.

"When the religious man falls, he gets up again, brushes himself, and goes on; the irreligious one remains lying in the dirt. Thus the whole art of life consists in not turning one's back to the light.

=The Superman.=--"The gentlemen who talk about development say that Christianity is out of date and lies behind us. No! Christianity is everywhere; behind us, near us, before us.

"Pagans of all kinds really created their gods in their own likeness. But with Christianity came the transcendent God and revealed Himself to men who had the goodwill to understand Him. Therefore Christianity is the beginning of the world's history, its middle, and its end. 'Whither and whence everything streams,' as Hegel says.

"The multiplication-table is still older, but is not out of date; it is still used, though logarithms have been discovered. The laws of thought, atomic weights, oscillations of waves of light and sound, have not been left behind us, but are still continually close to us.

"But if one does reattach oneself to Christianity, one should take it without refining--stock and barrel, dogmas and miracles. One should swallow it uncritically, naïvely, in great gulps, then it goes down like castor-oil in hot coffee. 'Open your mouth and shut your eyes.' That is the only way.

"I am a Christian, _i.e._ I am a nobleman; I belong to the upper class; I have been vaccinated; I have served my time in the army; I am a citizen and of full age; I am a white man; I have a clean birth-certificate; I am a superman."

To be a Christian Is not to be a Pietist.--The pupil continued: "If my pagan friends would only give up the idea that a Christian must be a pietist, they would come into our pantheon in crowds. Luther ate and drank what was set before him, as St. Paul enjoins; he played, sang, hunted, and played skittles. He swore also; but notice well, he never asked God to curse him, or the Devil to take him; he only said, 'Curse such and such a thing,' or 'To the devil with it!' Certainly I think he might have modified that habit, as it created annoyance, and he was a chief priest and prophet.

"It is a standing error to think that we lay-men should live every day like priests. We cannot; we have neither the time nor the means; it is a shame to demand it. But with the priest it is otherwise. He has devoted his life to the service of the Lord. He should spend the six days of the week in so preparing his sermon that he can say it by heart. I will not compare the clergyman with the actor, but on Sunday he ought at any rate be able to repeat his rôle verbatim. For doing that he gets his bread. If the congregation see that he reads his sermon, they think, 'We could do that too; there is no art in that!' And the minister of the Lord must take good heed to himself else he arouses annoyance. People will not take it ill if he is austere, and refrains from society, for he is a representative, not a private person. With the layman it is otherwise. He is a poor sinful man, of whom too much cannot be demanded as he drags his daily burden through the wicked world."

=Strength and Value of Words.=--The teacher said: "Thought is an act of the mind, and words are congealed thoughts. The uttered word can have an effect like a charm or an adjuration. There are men who are so sensitive that they are aware at a distance whether people are speaking well or ill of them. There are men who are not afraid of committing a crime, but are startled at the word which names it. Weak men cannot endure hard words; they make them ill. A word may kill. If I were a judge, I would always first ask the man-slayer, 'What did he say which made you strike him down?' And then I should allow for extenuating circumstances, or even acquit the man, if the deadly word caused the deadly blow as a reflex-action. If for fifty years I have cherished the memory of my parents, and my family, property, and honour is based on my relationship to them, and then someone comes and tells me I am not my father's son, he has killed me; the whole edifice of my emotional life collapses. He has paralysed my energy and willingness to sacrifice myself; he has imposed upon me the monstrous task of radically changing my views of the world and men; he has rooted-up my filial affection; with a single word he has annihilated my whole life. If he has lied, he is simply a murderer!"

=The Black Illuminati.=--The teacher said: "Everything serves, and error often helps forward truth. At the end of the last century, the materialists began to sniff about in the occult. One day they discovered the capacity of men, when in a hypnotic state, of seeing at a distance, of beholding the invisible, and of penetrating the future. Then they accomplished, curiously enough, the honourable task of establishing the truth of clairvoyance and prophecy, as well as the possibility of miracles. The theosophists, who really at a terrible period of the 'black illumination' sought to penetrate behind phenomena and dug up useful fragments of ancient wisdom, were however hostile to Christianity. They went so far as to send one of their prophets to India to warn the natives against the missionaries.

"But in course of time they began to investigate Christianity again; they were now provided with the proper means for understanding the mysteries of Christ's incarnation and atoning death, of sacraments and miracles. And see now! their latest prophetess has written a book to explain and defend Christianity! All roads seem to lead to Christ. No one has done such good service to Christianity as the materialistic occultists and the atheistic theosophists. Young France has been Christianised by the pagans. The last apostle of the rustic intelligence stands isolated there in his damnable infatuation, believing himself to be the only 'illuminated' one in the world. Let us hope that he is the last of the 'Illuminati.'"

"Yes, let us hope so."

=Anthropomorphism.=--"Man is inclined to make everything after his own likeness. When the heathen made themselves gods, the latter resembled their creators in all their defects and sins. That is called Anthropomorphism. The artist who paints a portrait, always puts something of his own into it. I know a sculptor who always used to model his own undersized figure with its two short legs, whether he was representing mountaineers, fauns, men of science, or kings. The plumper he became in course of time, the more rotund his figures grew. I know a photographer who always retouches his portraits of people till they resemble himself. He must admire his own exterior, and wish to have it taken as a standard-type. The critic when he describes an author, proceeds in a similar fashion. Every point in which the author resembles him is reckoned a merit; everyone in which he differs, a fault.

"When anyone says, 'This poet is the best I know; you must read him!' that means, 'This poet has my views; you must share them, for they are the best in the world.' Everyone would like to fashion humanity and the world in his own image. But if everyone had his way, what would the world look like?"

=Fury-worship as a Penal Hallucination.=--The teacher said: "Swedenborg describes, in his fashion, how the greatest tyrant arrived in Hades. He wished to stir up hell against heaven, and he was punished by having a terrible woman sent to rule him, whom he worshipped. She was a compendium of original sin, deliberate falsehood, wilful deceit, ugliness, uncleanness, destructiveness. But he was compelled to see in her the good, the beautiful, the lovable; he called her 'my angel.' All his adherents were obliged to worship her, or he called them 'woman-haters.' Whence Swedenborg derived his narratives, I know not, but his descriptions are like photographs of our everyday life. The modern worship of women does not come down from the Christian ages of chivalry, for those romanticists honoured womanhood in its virtues. Our new gyneolatry is derived from the heathen; it is a kind of fury-worship imposed on us as a penal hallucination. The sons of the Lord of Dung deify their furies, and praise their faults. In their view sin is virtue, wickedness is character, deceitfulness is a proof of intelligence, coarseness is strength. He who will not join in this devil-worship is called a woman-hater. Chaste wives and mothers are called old-fashioned and perverse. Euripides describes in the _Hippolytus_ how this king's son dedicated his devotion to the chaste Diana and fled the demotic Venus. This impure goddess avenged herself by accusing the innocent Hippolytus of incest and then caused him to be put to death. Euripides on account of writing this tragedy was called a 'woman-hater,' and is said to have been tom in pieces by female dogs. That is a pretty legend!"

=Amerigo or Columbus.=--The teacher said: "Human greatness and the way of becoming great is something very remarkable. Often envious hatred of the deserving seems to be converted into immense love for the undeserving. The infatuation of hatred may go so far that when the deserving has done a good work, the undeserving gets the glory of it. But often also there are secret reasons for this abnormal result. Every schoolboy has asked why America was not named after Columbus, who discovered it. I also made that inquiry, and while I served the Lord of Dung I found it quite natural that the undeserving cartographer Vespucci should have the honour of the discovery.

"But when I recovered my reason (and men called me mad), I read the biography of Columbus again. There I found that, together with his merits, he had great faults. Like David, he sinned by pride, avarice, cruelty, and deceit. His pride was boundless. Before undertaking his doubtful voyage, he laid down as a condition that he was to be Viceroy (he, the weaver's son!) and receive a tithe of the revenues. Well, he never learnt that he had discovered a new quarter of the globe. He died and was forgotten.

"Vespucci, on the other hand, was not only a cartographer, but sailed round South America, and discovered that the New World was not India. He seems to have been a good-natured, upright, and modest man. Toscanelli, his contemporary, is also said to have announced the existence of a new world, but that is not so certain."

=A Circumnavigator of the Globe.=--The pupil said: "Can you resolve my discords?"

"I will call you a circumnavigator of the globe. You have sailed round it, and returned to the point whence you set out. No one can go further than that. But you return with a freight of experience, knowledge, and wisdom. Therefore the journey was not in vain, or to speak more correctly, it has fulfilled its object. Max Muller, who at the time of the decadence was the scapegoat for all the atheists, concludes his history of religion thus: 'It is easy to say that the completest faith is a child's faith. Nothing can be truer. The older we grow, the more we learn to comprehend the wisdom of children's faith.' And in another place he says: 'To explain religion by referring it to a religious impulse, or a religious capacity, is merely to explain the known by the less known. The real religious impulse or instinct is the apprehension of the infinite.' Thank your misfortunes that you have arrived at the infinite. 'The fortunate do not believe that miracles still happen, for only in misery we recognise God's hand and finger, which leads good men to good.'"

"Do you know who said that?"

"No; is it Luther?"

"No; it is Goethe in _Hermann and Dorothea._ And the 'great pagan' wrote in 1779 to Lavater: 'My God, to whom I have been ever faithful, has in secret richly blessed me. For my destiny is quite hidden from men; they can neither hear nor see at all, how it is determined.' The Lice-King omits such expressions when he wishes to incorporate Goethe among his slimy larvæ."

=The Poet's Children.=--The teacher continued: "Moreover, as I have already told you, you are a poet, and must pass through your reincarnations here. You have a right to invent poetic personalities, and at every stage to speak the speech of the one you represent. Shakespeare has done so, whether he did it consciously, or whether life assigned him the various roles he played. At one time he is a cheerful optimist; at another, the misogynist Timon, or the world-despiser Hamlet; he is the jealous Othello, the amorous Romeo, so-and-so the panegyrist of women, and so-and-so the misogynist. I believe indeed that he has, by way of experiment, been the murderer Macbeth, and the monster Richard III. He utters the malignant speeches of the last with real relish. Every rascal may defend himself, and Shakespeare is his advocate.

"There the poet should have no grave; his ashes should be strewn to all the winds of heaven. He should only live in his works, if they possess vital power. Men should accustom themselves to look upon him as something different from an ordinary man; they ought not to judge him, but regard him as something which they cannot understand. You remember the dying Epaminondas. When they condoled with him because he left no children, he answered: 'Children? I have Leuktra and Mantinea.'"