Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/274

 OF VIRTUE THAT MAKETH SMALLER

��Having reached the firm land again, Zarathustra did not straightway go unto his mountains and his cave, but walked about much and put many questions and learned this and that so that he said of himself by way of a joke : " Behold a river which with many windings floweth back unto its source." For he wished to learn what in the meantime had gone on with man, whether he had become taller or smaller. And once he saw a row of new houses. Then he wondered and said :

" What do these houses mean ? Verily, no great soul put them there to be its likeness !

Did a silly child take them out of the toy-box? Would that another child would put them back into his box !

And these public rooms and bed-rooms are men able to go in and out there ? They appear unto me to be made for silken dolls ; or for sweet-teeth, which even allow delicacies to be stolen from them."

And Zarathustra stopped and meditated. At last he said sadly: "All hath become smaller!

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