Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/213

 "What do these houses mean? no great soul put them up as its simile!

Did perhaps a silly child take them out of its toy-box? Would that another child put them again into the box!

And these rooms and chambers- can men go out and in there? They seem to be made for silk dolls; or for dainty-eaters, who perhaps let others eat with them."

And Zarathustra stood still and meditated. At last he said sorrowfully: "There has everything become smaller!

Everywhere do I see lower doorways: he who is of my type can still go therethrough, but- he must stoop!

Oh, when shall I arrive again at my home, where I shall no longer have to stoop- shall no longer have to stoop before the small ones!"- And Zarathustra sighed, and gazed into the distance.-

The same day, however, he spoke on the virtue that makes small.

2.
I pass through this people and keep my eyes open: they do not forgive me for not envying their virtues.

They bite at me, because I say to them that for small people, small virtues are necessary- and because it is hard for me to understand that small people are necessary!

Here am I still like a cock in a strange farm-yard, at which even the hens peck: but on that account I am not unfriendly to the hens.

I am courteous towards them, as towards all small annoyances; to be prickly towards what is small, seems to me wisdom for hedgehogs.