RELATIONS WITH CELEBRITIES.—_A._ But why do you shun this great man?—_B._ I should not like to misunderstand him. Our defects are incompatible with one another: I am short-sighted and suspicious, and he wears his false diamonds as willingly as his real ones. 227. THE CHAIN-WEARERS.—Beware of all those intellects which are bound in chains! clever women, for example, who have been banished by fate to narrow and dull surroundings, amid which they grow old. True, there they lie in the sun, apparently lazy and half-blind; but at every unknown step, at everything unexpected, they start up to bite: they revenge themselves on everything that has escaped their kennel. 228. REVENGE IN PRAISE.—Here we have a written page which is covered with praise, and you call it flat; but when you find out that revenge is concealed in this praise you will find it almost too subtle, and you will experience a great deal of pleasure in its numerous delicate and bold strokes and similes. It is not the man himself, but his revenge, which is so subtle, rich, and ingenious: he himself is scarcely aware of it. 229. PRIDE.—Ah, not one of you knows the feeling of the tortured man after he has been put to the torture, when he is being carried back to his cell, and his secret with him!—he still holds it in a stubborn and tenacious grip. What know ye of the exultation of human pride? 230. “UTILITARIAN.”—At the present time men’s sentiments on moral things run in such labyrinthic paths that, while we demonstrate morality to one man by virtue of its utility, we refute it to another on account of this utility. 231. ON GERMAN VIRTUE.—How degenerate in its taste, how servile to dignities, ranks, uniforms, pomp, and splendour must a nation have been, when it began to consider the simple as the bad, the simple man (_schlicht_) as the bad man (_schlecht_)! We should always oppose the moral bumptiousness of the Germans with this one little word “bad,” and nothing else. 232. FROM A DISPUTE.—_A._ Friend, you have talked yourself hoarse.—_B._ Then I am refuted, so let’s drop the subject. 233. THE “CONSCIENTIOUS” ONES.—Have you noticed the kind of men who attach the greatest value to the most scrupulous conscientiousness? Those who are conscious of many mean and petty sentiments, who are anxiously thinking of and about themselves, are afraid of others, and are desirous of concealing their inmost feelings as far as possible. They endeavour to impose upon themselves by means of this strict conscientiousness and rigorousness of duty, and by the stern and harsh impression which others, especially their inferiors, cannot fail to receive of them. 234.