Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/297

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FOURTH BOOK
261

what he knows, what he wants: it would be hazardous and detrimental to be deceived on this head. Love, on the other hand, has a secret craving to discover in the loved object as many beautiful qualities as possible, or to raise him as highly as possible: to be thus deceived would be delightful and propitious, —wherefore love indulges in it.

310

The good-natured.—The good-natured have acquired their character from the constant dread of foreign encroachments in which their ancestors lived; who were in the habit of mitigating, appeasing, apologising, preventing, diverting, flattering, humbling themselves, concealing both grief and anger, smoothing their features,—and ultimately bequenthed this whole delicate and successful mechanism to their children and grandchildren. These, thanks to a more propitious fate, had no occasion for that permanent dread: nevertheless they continue in the same groove.

311

The so-called soul.—The sum total of inward emotions which are familiar to men, and which they consequently stir up readily and gracefully, is called a soul;—all are considered void of soul who betray exertion and harshness in their inward emotions,