Bookkeeping

For he felt that, since fear is very difficult to master in oneself, man must be a much higher being when he has learned not to be afraid any more.

meanwhile who knows perhaps cowardice that miserable despicable much abused weakness of the underworld is not such a vice after all perhaps it is even a virtue think of dostoevsky and his heroes think of hamlet if the underworld man and us were afraid of nothing if hamlet were naturally a gladiator then we should have neither tragic poetry nor philosophy it is a platitude that fear of death has been the inspiration of philosophers numberless quotations could be drawn from ancient and modern writers if they were necessary maybe the poetic daemon of socrates which made him wise was only fear personified or perhaps it was his dark dreams that which troubled him by day did not quit him by night even after the sentence of death socrates dreamed that he ought to engage in the arts so in order not to provoke the gods he began to compose verses at the age of seventy tolstoy also at the age of fifty began to perform good deeds to which performance he had previously given not the slightest attention if it were our custom nowadays to express ourselves mythologically we should no doubt hear tolstoy telling us about his daemon or his dreams instead he squares his accounts with science and morality in place of gods or demons many a present-day alcibiades who laves all the week in the muddy waters of life comes on sundays to cleanse himself in the pure stream of tolstoian ideas Bookkeeping is satisfied with this modest success, and assumes that if it commands universal attention one day in the week, then obviously it is the sum and essence of life, beyond which man needs nothing.

On the same grounds, the keepers of public baths could argue that since so many people come to them on Saturdays, therefore cleanliness is the highest ambition of man, and during the week no one should stir at all, lest he sweat or soil himself.

26.