Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/63

Rh not think too highly of it! What kind of craving is it, and what is its innermost meaning? We wish our sight to cause grief to our neighbour, and to excite his envy, the sense of impotence and of his degradation : we want to make him taste the bitterness of his fate by dripping on his toungue a drop of our honey, and by keenly and maliciously looking into his eyes while bestowing on him this supposed favour. This person has become humble and is now perfect in his humility —look for those whom, for a long time, he has been wanting to torment therewith. You will easily find them. Another shows pity to animals and is admired for so doing—but there are certain people on whom he thus trauts to vent his cruelty. Behold that great artist: the anticipated delight in the envy of his outstripped rivals would not let his powers lie dormant until he became a great man—how many bitter moments of other men's souls has he received in payment for his aggrandisement! Flow reproachfully the chaste man looks at other women who live a different life! What vindictive delight lurks in these eyes! The theme is short, the variations on it might casily be multiplied without becoming tedious—for it is still a very paradoxical and almost painful proposition that the morality of distinction in its foundation is the delight in refined cruelty. In its foundation, I say—which means, in every first genera-tion. For when once the habit of some distinguishing action has been transmitted, the fundamental thought