A SPECIES OF MISCONCEPTION.—When we hear somebody speak it is often sufficient for his pronunciation of a single consonant (the letter r, for example) to fill us with doubts as to the honesty of his feelings: we are not accustomed to this particular pronunciation, and should have to make it ourselves as it were arbitrarily—it sounds “forced” to us. This is the domain of the greatest possible misconception: and it is the same with the style of a writer who has certain habits which are not the habits of everybody. His “artlessness” is felt as such only by himself, and precisely in regard to that which he himself feels to be “forced” (because he has yielded in this matter to the prevailing fashion and to so called “good taste”), he may perhaps give pleasure and inspire confidence. 293. THANKFUL.—One superfluous grain of gratitude and piety makes one suffer as from a vice—in spite of all one’s independence and honesty one begins to have a bad conscience. 294. SAINTS.—It is the most sensual men who find it necessary to avoid women and to torture their bodies. 295. THE SUBTLETY OF SERVING.—One of the most subtle tasks in the great art of serving is that of serving a more than usually ambitious man, who, indeed, is excessively egoistic in all things, but is entirely adverse to being thought so (this is part of his ambition). He requires that everything shall be according to his own will and humour, yet in such a way as to give him the appearance of always having sacrificed himself, and of rarely desiring anything for himself alone. 296. DUELLING.—I think it a great advantage, said some one, to be able to fight a duel—if, of course, it is absolutely necessary; for I have at all times brave companions about me. The duel is the last means of thoroughly honourable suicide left to us; but it is unfortunately a circuitous means, and not even a certain one. 297. PERNICIOUS.—A young man can be most surely corrupted when he is taught to value the like-minded more highly than the differently minded. 298. HERO-WORSHIP AND ITS FANATICS.—The fanatic of an ideal that possesses flesh and blood is right as a rule so long as he assumes a negative attitude, and he is terrible in his negation: he knows what he denies as well as he knows himself, for the simple reason that he comes thence, that he feels at home there, and that he has always the secret fear of being forced to return there some day. He therefore wishes to make his return impossible by the manner of his negation. As soon as he begins to affirm, however, he partly shuts his eyes and begins to idealise (frequently merely for the sake of annoying those who have stayed at home). We might say that there was something artistic about this—agreed, but there is also something dishonest about it.