Prometheus

Hoevele malen wordt de mijmerzieke, speculatieve geest gedreven in dezelfde engte en hoeveel malen weerlegt liij zichzelf en houdt zich voor dat ״such things must be".

And I lay on my back and looked at the sky...

,,And yet", I wondered, „though my friend and I may be equally necessary, I am certainly irritated by him, and shall as certainly continue to be irritated, not only by him, but by a thousand other men and things. And as to the things that I love and admire, am I to suppress these loves and admirations because I know them merely¹ to be the necessary expressions of the moods of an underlying Principle that turns and turns on Itself? Does not this way nullity lie?" But then I thought: „Not so; for you cannot believe in the great adjusted Mood or Principle without believing in each little and individual part of It. And you are yourself a little individual part, therefore you must believe in that little individual part which is you, with all its natural likings and dislikings, and indeed, you cannot show your belief except by expression of those likings and dislikings. And so, with a light heart, you may go on being irritated with your friend in the bowler hat, you may go on loving those peasants and this sky and sea. But, since you have this theory of life, you may not despise anyone or any thing, not even a skittle-alley, for they are all threaded to you, and to despise them would be to blaspheme against continuity, and to blaspheme against continuity would be to deny Eternity. Love you cannot help, and hate you cannot help, but contempt is — for you — the sovereign idiocy, the irreligious fancy" ................

„But how" — I thought — „about such as do not feel it ridiculous to despise; how about those whose temperaments and religions show them all things so plainly that they know they are right and others wrong? They must be in a bad wayl" — and for some seconds I felt sorry for them, and was discouraged. But then I thought: „Not at all, obviously notl For if they do not find it ridiculous to feel contempt, they are perfectly right to feel contempt, it being naturel to them, and you have no business to feel sorry for them, for that is, after all, only your euphemism for contempt..."

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