Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/83

 OF READING AND WRITING 49

Courage that dispelleth ghosts createth goblins for itself, courage desireth to laugh.

I no longer feel as ye do : this cloud which I see beneath me, that blackness and heaviness at which I laugh, that is your thunder-cloud.

Ye look upward when longing to be exalted. And I look downward because I am exalted.

Which of you can at the same time laugh and be exalted ?

He who strideth across the highest mountains laugheth at all tragedies whether of the stage or of life.

Brave, unconcerned, scornful, violent, thus wisdom would have us to be : she is a women and ever loveth the warrior only.

Ye say unto me : ' Life is hard to bear.' But for what purpose have ye got in the morning your pride and in the evening your submission ?

Life is hard to bear. But do not pretend to be so frail ! We are all good he-asses and she-asses of burden.

What have we in common with the rose-bud that trembleth because a drop of dew lieth on its body ?

It is true : we love life, not because we are accus- tomed to life, but because we are accustomed to love.

There is always a madness in love. There is how- ever also always a reason in madness.

And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies,

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