Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy—to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. Therefore, whenever I see a fly settling, in the decisive moment, on the nose of such a person of affairs; or if he is spattered with mud from a carriage which drives past him in still greater haste; or the drawbridge opens up before him; or a tile falls down and knocks him dead, then I laugh heartily. And who, indeed, could help laughing? What, I wonder, do these busy folks get done? Are they not to be classed with the woman who in her confusion about the house being on fire carried out the fire-tongs? What things of greater account, do you suppose, will they rescue from life's great conflagration?
Let others complain that the times are wicked. I com-
plain that they are paltry; for they are without passion.
The thoughts of men are thin and frail like lace, and they
themselves are feeble like girl lace-makers. The thoughts
of their hearts are too puny to be sinful. For a worm it
might conceivably be regarded a sin to harbor thoughts
such as theirs, not for a man who is formed in the image of
God. Their lusts are staid and sluggish, their passions
sleepy; they do their duty, these sordid minds, but permit
themselves, as did the Jews, to trim the coins just the least
little bit, thinking that if our Lord keep tab of them ever
so carefully one might yet safely venture to fool him a bit.
Fye upon them! It is therefore my soul ever returns to
the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There at least
one feels that one is dealing with men and women; there
one hates and loves, there one murders one's enemy and
curses his issue through all generations—there one sins.
Just as, according to the legend,[1] Parmeniscus in the Tro--
- ↑ Told by Athenaios
