(13) Wherever you meet a shyness that comes out of solitude, (although _all_ solitude is not _anti_-herd) naiveness, and a patent absence of contamination, the sweetness of mountain water, any of the signs of goodness, you must treat that as sacred, as portions of the mountain. However much you suffer for it, you must defend and exalt it. On the other hand, _every_ child is not simple, and _every_ woman is not weak.=In many cases to champion a female would be like springing to the rescue of a rhinoceros when you notice that it had been attacked by a flea. Chivalrous manners, again, with many women are like tiptoeing into a shed where an ox is sleeping.=Some children, too, rival in nastiness their parents. But you have your orders in this matter. Indifference where there should be nothing but the _whole_ eagerness or compunction of your being, is the worst crime in the mountain’s eyes. (14) Conquests have usually been divided from their antitheses, and defeats from conquests, by some casual event. Had Moscow not possessed a governor ready to burn the Kremlin and the hundreds of palaces accumulated there, peace would have been signed by the Czar at Bonaparte’s entrance.=Had the Llascans persevered for ten days against Cortés, the Aztecs would never have been troubled. Yet Montezuma was right to remain inactive, paralysed by prophecy. Napoleon was right when he felt that his star was at last a useless one. He had drained it of all its astonishing effulgence.=The hair’s breadth is only the virtuosity of Fate, guiding you along imaginary precipices.=And all the detail is make-believe, anyway. Watch your star soberly and without comment. Do not trouble about the paste-board cliffs! (15) _There are very stringent regulations_ about the herd keeping off the sides of the mountain. In fact your chief function is to prevent their encroaching. Some, in moments of boredom or vindictiveness, are apt to make rushes for the higher regions. Their instinct always fortunately keeps them in crowds or bands, and their trespassing is soon noticed. Those traps and numerous devices you have seen on the edge of the plain are for use, of course, in the last resort. Do not apply them prematurely.=Not very many herdsmen lose their lives in dealing with the herds. (16) Contradict yourself. In order to live, you must remain broken up. (17) The teacher does not have to _be_, although he has to _know_: He is the mind imagining, not the executant. The executant, the young, svelte, miraculous athlete, the strapping virtuoso, really has to give the illusion of a perfection.=Do not expect _me_ to keep in sufficiently good training to perform the feats I recommend.=I usually remain up on the mountain. (18) Above all this sad commerce with the herd, let something veritably remain “un peu sur la montagne.” Always come down with masks and thick clothing to the valley where we work.