[Footnote 1: Vieles kann ich ertragen. Die meisten beschwerlichen Dinge Duld' ich mit ruhigem Mut, wie es ein Gott mir gebeut. Wenige sind mir jedoch wie Gift und Schlange zuwider; Viere: Rauch des Tabaks, Wanzen, und Knoblauch und Goethe's _Venetian Epigrams,_ No. 67. Much can I bear. Things the most irksome I endure with such patience as comes from a god. Four things, however, repulse me like venom:--Tobacco smoke, garlic, bugs, and the cross. (TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.) ] 176. _The reaction of paltry people_:--Love provides the feeling of highest power. It should be understood to what extent, not man in general, but only a certain kind of man is speaking here. "We are godly in love, we shall be 'the children of God'; God loves us and wants nothing from us save love"; that is to say: all morality, obedience, and action, do not produce the same feeling of power and freedom as love does;--a man does nothing wicked from sheer love, but he does much more than if he were prompted by obedience and virtue alone. Here is the happiness of the herd, the communal feeling in big things as in small, the living sentiment of unity felt as the _sum of the feeling of life._ Helping, caring for, and being useful, constantly kindle the feeling of power; visible success, the expression of pleasure, emphasise the feeling of power; pride is not lacking either, it is felt in the form of the community, the House of God, and the "chosen people." As a matter of fact, man has once more experienced an "_altération" of his personality_: this time he called his feeling of love--God. The awakening of such a feeling must be pictured; it is a sort of ecstasy, a strange language, a "Gospel"--it was this newness which did not allow man to attribute love to himself--he thought it was God leading him on and taking shape in his heart. "God descends among men," one's neighbour is transfigured and becomes a God (in so far as he provokes the sentiment of love), _Jesus is the neighbour,_ the moment He is transfigured in thought into a God, and into a cause _provoking the feeling of power._ 177.