may see _what_ it is that the mirror shows.
Life is the proof sheet, in which the compositors' errors are brought
to light. How they become visible, and whether the type is large or
small, are matters of no consequence. Neither in the externals of life
nor in the course of history is there any significance; for as it is
all one whether an error occurs in the large type or in the small, so
it is all one, as regards the essence of the matter, whether an evil
disposition is mirrored as a conqueror of the world or a common
swindler or ill-natured egoist. In one case he is seen of all men; in
the other, perhaps only of himself; but that he should see himself is
what signifies.

Therefore if egoism has a firm hold of a man and masters him, whether
it be in the form of joy, or triumph, or lust, or hope, or frantic
grief, or annoyance, or anger, or fear, or suspicion, or passion of
any kind--he is in the devil's clutches and how he got into them does
not matter. What is needful is that he should make haste to get out of
them; and here, again, it does not matter how.

I have described _character_ as _theoretically_ an act of will lying
beyond time, of which life in time, or _character in action_, is the
development. For matters of practical life we all possess the one as
well as the other; for we are constituted of them both. Character
modifies our life more than we think, and it is to a certain extent
true that every man is the architect of his own fortune. No doubt it
seems as if our lot were assigned to us almost entirely from without,
and imparted to us in something of the same way in which a melody
outside us reaches the ear. But on looking back over our past, we see
at once that our life consists of mere variations on one and the same
theme, namely, our character, and that the same fundamental bass
sounds through it all. This is an experience which a man can and must
make in and by himself.

Not only a man's life, but his intellect too, may be possessed of a
clear and definite character, so far as his intellect is applied to
matters of theory. It is not every man, however, who has an intellect
of this kind; for any such definite individuality as I mean is
genius--an original view of the world, which presupposes an absolutely
exceptional individuality, which is the essence of genius. A man's
intellectual character is the theme on which all his works are
variations. In an essay which I wrote in Weimar I called it the kna