Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/292

256 something artistic—greed, but there is also something dishonest in it. The idealist of a person imagines the same at such a distance that he cannot possibly obtain a clear view of the outlines, and he misinterprets that which he is just able to see as something “beautiful," which means something symmetrical, of soft lineaments, vague. Since he also longs to adore his ideal, which is floating on high in the far distance, he must necessarily build a temple for the purpose of his worship and out of the reach of the . Into this temple he brings all the other venerable and consecrated objects which he possesses in order that their charm may reflect on liis ideal and that, with such nourishment, it may grow more and more divine. At last he has actually succeeded in forming his god, —but alas ! there is one who knows how this has been brought about,— his intellectual conscience and there is one besides who quite unconsciously protests against these proceedings, namely, the deified person himself, becoming unbearable in consequence of the worship, the hymns of praise and incense, and showing himself in an abominable manner as non-divine and more than human. In such a case there is but one escape left to the fanatic: he patiently suffers himself and his kin to be maltreated, interpreting even their misery by a now kind of self-deceit and noble fiction: he takes sides against himself and in so doing experiences, in his capacity of an ill-treated person and interpreter,