e only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity
as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one
speaks "badly"--and not even "ill"--of man, then ought the lover of
knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general,
to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the
indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with
his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society),
may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and
self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary,
more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR
as the indignant man.

27. It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and
lives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the river Ganges: presto.] among
those only who think and live otherwise--namely, kurmagati [Footnote:
Like the tortoise: lento.], or at best "froglike," mandeikagati
[Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to be "difficultly
understood" myself!)--and one should be heartily grateful for the
good will to some refinement of interpretation. As regards "the good
friends," however, who are always too easy-going, and think that as
friends they have a right to ease, one does well at the very first to
grant them a play-ground and romping-place for misunderstanding--one can
thus laugh still; or get rid of them altogether, these good friends--and
laugh then also!

28. What is most difficult to render from one language into another
is the TEMPO of its style, which has its basis in the character of the
race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average TEMPO of the
assimilation of its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations,
which, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the
original, merely because its lively and merry TEMPO (which overleaps and
obviates all dangers in word and expression) could not also be
rendered. A German is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in his language;
consequently also, as may be reasonably inferred, for many of the most
delightful and daring NUANCES of free, free-spirited thought. And just
as the buffoon and satyr are foreign to him in body and conscience,
so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything
ponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying
species of style, are developed in profuse variety among Germans--pardon
me fo