manifested, be it never so little. Take
the best of men; how little he can _say_ of what goes on within
him, since it is only conceptions that are communicable; and yet a
conversation with a clever man is one of the greatest of pleasures.

It is not only that ordinary men have little to say, but what
intellect they have puts them in the way of concealing and distorting
it; and it is the necessity of practising this concealment that gives
them such a pitiable character; so that what they exhibit is not even
the little that they have, but a mask and disguise. The lower animals,
which have no reason, can conceal nothing; they are altogether
_naive_, and therefore very entertaining, if we have only an eye for
the kind of communications which they make. They speak not with words,
but with shape and structure, and manner of life, and the things they
set about; they express themselves, to an intelligent observer, in a
very pleasing and entertaining fashion. It is a varied life that is
presented to him, and one that in its manifestation is very different
from his own; and yet essentially it is the same. He sees it in its
simple form, when reflection is excluded; for with the lower animals
life is lived wholly in and for the present moment: it is the present
that the animal grasps; it has no care, or at least no conscious care,
for the morrow, and no fear of death; and so it is wholly taken up
with life and living.

* * * * *

The conversation among ordinary people, when it does not relate to any
special matter of fact, but takes a more general character, mostly
consists in hackneyed commonplaces, which they alternately repeat to
each other with the utmost complacency.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--This observation is in
Schopenhauer's own English.]

* * * * *

Some men can despise any blessing as soon as they cease to possess
it; others only when they have obtained it. The latter are the more
unhappy, and the nobler, of the two.

* * * * *

When the aching heart grieves no more over any particular object,
but is oppressed by life as a whole, it withdraws, as it were, into
itself. There is here a retreat and gradual extinction of the will,
whereby the body, which is the manifestation of the will, is slowly
but surely undermined; and the individual experiences a steady
dissolution of his bonds,--a quiet presentiment of