Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/243

Rh at which we may be turned from individuals into screws! Are you the accomplices in the present folly of nations, who, above all, want to produce as much as possible, and be as rich as possible? It would be your duty to present to them your counter-chains: what large sums of intrinsic value have been thrown away for such an external aim. But where is your intrinsic value, if yon no longer know what it is to breathe freely: if you have not even the slightest command over your own selves; if but too often you get tired of yourselves as of a stale beverage; if you watch the newspapers and look askance at your rich neighbour, being male covetous by the quick rise and fall of power, money and opinions; if you no longer believe in a philosophy clad in rags, or the genuineness of one who has few wants; if a voluntary, idyllic poverty, without profession or matrimony, such a state as should suit the more intellectual ones amongst you, has become a subject of derision to you? Whilst your car's are ringing with the flute-sounds of the socialistic rat-charmers who wish to fill you with wild hopes; who bid you be ready and nothing else, ready from this day to the morrow, so that you may be waiting and waiting for something from outside, living in all other respects as you lived before—until this waiting shall be turned into hunger and thirst, fever and madness, and the day of the triumphant beast at last will dawn in all its glory? Yet every one should say to himself: I will rather denigrate and try to subdue fresh countries and “pastures