them anything you like, health, food, abode, enjoyment —they are and will ever be unhappy and whimsical : for the demon is ever on the alert and longing to be gratified. Take everything from them and gratify this craving: then they will almost be happy—as happy, at least, as men and demons can be. But why do I say this? Luther has already said it, and better than I, in the verses: "And though they take our life, goods, honour, children, wife ; yet is their profit small, these things shall vanish all. The kingdom of God remaineth." Ay, ay! The kingdom!
263
Contradiction, embodied and animated.—There is a physiological contradiction in the so-called genius : in the first place he is possessed of many wild, disorderly, involuntary emotions, and then again of many highly efficient ones at the same time he owns it mirror which shows both emotions side by side and within each other, and pretty often in opposition to each other. In consequence of this sight he is often happy, and if he feels happiest at work it is because he forgets that just then he is, with the utmost efficiency, doing—and cannot help doing something fantastical and irrational (for such is every art).
264
Wishing to be mistaken.—Jealous people with more
