A little more, a little less: precisely this is much here, it is the most here. To stand with relaxed muscles and with unharnessed will: that is the hardest for all of you, ye sublime ones! When power becometh gracious and descendeth into the visible—I call such condescension, beauty. And from no one do I want beauty so much as from thee, thou powerful one: let thy goodness be thy last self-conquest. All evil do I accredit to thee: therefore do I desire of thee the good. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have crippled paws! The virtue of the pillar shalt thou strive after: more beautiful doth it ever become, and more graceful—but internally harder and more sustaining—the higher it riseth. Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt thou also be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to thine own beauty. Then will thy soul thrill with divine desires; and there will be adoration even in thy vanity! For this is the secret of the soul: when the hero hath abandoned it, then only approacheth it in dreams—the superhero.— Thus spake Zarathustra. XXXVI. THE LAND OF CULTURE. Too far did I fly into the future: a horror seized upon me. And when I looked around me, lo! there time was my sole contemporary. Then did I fly backwards, homewards—and always faster. Thus did I come unto you, ye present-day men, and into the land of culture. For the first time brought I an eye to see you, and good desire: verily, with longing in my heart did I come. But how did it turn out with me? Although so alarmed—I had yet to laugh! Never did mine eye see anything so motley-coloured! I laughed and laughed, while my foot still trembled, and my heart as well. “Here forsooth, is the home of all the paintpots,”—said I. With fifty patches painted on faces and limbs—so sat ye there to mine astonishment, ye present-day men! And with fifty mirrors around you, which flattered your play of colours, and repeated it! Verily, ye could wear no better masks, ye present-day men, than your own faces! Who could—RECOGNISE you! Written all over with the characters of the past, and these characters also pencilled over with new characters—thus have ye concealed yourselves well from all decipherers! And though one be a trier of the reins, who still believeth that ye have reins! Out of colours ye seem to be baked, and out of glued scraps. All times and peoples gaze divers-coloured out of your veils; all customs and beliefs speak divers-coloured out of your gestures. He who would strip you of veils and wrappers, and paints and gestures, would just have enough left to scare the crows. Verily, I myself am the scared crow that once saw you naked, and without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton ogled at me. Rather would I be a day-labourer in the nether-world, and among the shades of the bygone!—Fatter and fuller than ye, are forsooth the nether-worldlings!