looks—in short, the exterior; that is, they grasp the phantom soul of a great hero, statesman, warrior, of ambitious, jealous, desperate person; they come pretty near the soul, but fail to arrive at the spirit of their objects. It would, indeed, be a truly valuable thing to discover that, instead of thinkers, discerners, experts, we only required clear-sighted actors to throw light upon the essence of any condition. Whenever such pre- sumptuous notions become prevalent, we should never forget that the actor is nothing but an ape, indeed so much of an ape that he is utterly unable to believe in “nature" and "essence"; all he aims at is acting, accent, gesture, stage, scenery, and audience.
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Living and believing apart.—The means of becoming the prophet and phenomenon of one's age is the same in our days as it was of old, namely, to live apart, with little knowledge, few thoughts, and great deal of conceit;—in the end the belief springs up within us that mankind cannot get on without us because it is quite evident that we get on quite well without mankind. As soon as this belief springs into existence we also find faith. A last advice to him who may be in need of it (it was given to Wesley by Bochler, his spiritual teacher): “Preach faith until you have it; then you will preach it because you have it."
