469
Inhumanity of the sage.—The heavy, grinding course of the sage who, according to the Buddhist song, “wanders lonely like the rhinoceros”—is now and then in need of proofs of a conciliable and modified humaneness: and not only of those accelerated steps, those polite and sociable tours d'esprit, not only of wit and a certain self-derision, but also of contradictions and occasional relapses into the predominant inconsistencies. The sage who wishes to teach has to use his deficiencies for his personal extenuation lest he might appear like the heavy roller which rolls along like fate; and when saying “ Despise me,” he asks for permission to be the advocate of a presumptuous truth. He wants to lead yon on to the mountains, he will perhaps even endanger your life: in compensation therefore he readily leaves it at your discretion to wreak vengeance on such a guide both beforehand and after—this is the price at which he cheerfully consents to take the lead. Do you remember what thoughts crossed your minds when once he led you to a dark eave by a slippery path? When your hearts, beating and dismayed, sighed imwardly: “This guide might do something better than crawl about here ! He is one of your inquisitive idlers:—is it not doing him too much honour to seem to attach any value at all to him in following him?”
