_Prophetic Men._--Ye cannot divine how sorely prophetic men suffer: ye think only that a fine "gift" has been given to them, and would fain have it yourselves,--but I will express my meaning by a simile. How much may not the animals suffer from the electricity of the atmosphere and the clouds! Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty with regard to the weather, for example, apes (as one can observe very well even in Europe,--and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar). But it never occurs to us that it is their _sufferings_--that are their prophets! When strong positive electricity, under the influence of an approaching cloud not at all visible, is suddenly converted into negative electricity, and an alteration of the weather is imminent, these animals then behave as if an enemy were approaching them, and prepare for defence, or flight: they generally hide themselves,--they do not think of the bad weather as weather, but as an enemy whose hand they already _feel!_ 317. _Retrospect._--We seldom become conscious of the real pathos of any period of life as such, as long as we continue in it, but always think it is the only possible and reasonable thing for us henceforth, and that it is altogether _ethos_ and not _pathos_[1]--to speak and distinguish like the Greeks. A few notes of music to-day recalled a winter and a house, and a life of utter solitude to my mind, and at the same time the sentiments in which I then lived: I thought I should be able to live in such a state always. But now I understand that it was entirely pathos and passion, something comparable to this painfully bold and truly comforting music,--it is not one's lot to have these sensations for years, still less for eternities: otherwise one would become too "ethereal" for this planet. [1] The distinction between ethos and pathos in Aristotle is, broadly, that between internal character and external circumstance.--P. V. C. 318.