Refracted light. – One is not always brave; and when one gets tired, one of us, too, is likely one day to lament: ‘It is so hard to hurt people – why is it necessary! What good does it do us to live in seclusion when we don’t want to keep to ourselves what gives offence? Wouldn’t it be more advisable to live in the bustle and to do good to individuals as compensation for the sins that should and must be committed against everyone? To be foolish with fools, vain with the vain, fanatic with the fanatic? Wouldn’t it be fair, given the extravagant degree of deviation on the whole? When I hear of other people’s malice towards me, is not satisfaction the first thing I feel? Quite right! (I seem to be saying to them) I am so little in agreement with you and have so much truth on my side that you might as well have a good day at my expense whenever you can! Here are my faults and mistakes; here is my delusion, my bad taste, my confusion, my tears, my vanity, my owlish seclusion, my contradictions! Here’s something for you to laugh at! So then laugh and be merry! I am not angry with the law and nature of things that want faults and mistakes to cause merriment! To be sure, there have been “more beautiful” times when one could still, with every moderately new idea, feel so indispensable as to take it out on the street and shout at everyone: “Behold! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”17 I would not miss myself if I were gone. We are all dispensable!’ But as I said, this is not how we think when we are brave; then we don’t think about that.