oo late--the
chance which gives "permission" to take action--when their best youth,
and strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many
a one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs are
benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late," he has
said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever
useless.--In the domain of genius, may not the "Raphael without
hands" (taking the expression in its widest sense) perhaps not be the
exception, but the rule?--Perhaps genius is by no means so rare: but
rather the five hundred HANDS which it requires in order to tyrannize
over the [GREEK INSERTED HERE], "the right time"--in order to take
chance by the forelock!

275. He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all the
more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground--and thereby
betrays himself.

276. In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is
better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be
greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in
fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its
existence.--In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so
in man.--

277. It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished
building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something
which he OUGHT absolutely to have known before he--began to build. The
eternal, fatal "Too late!" The melancholia of everything COMPLETED--!

278.--Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn,
without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has
returned to the light insatiated out of every depth--what did it seek
down there?--with a bosom that never sighs, with lips that conceal their
loathing, with a hand which only slowly grasps: who art thou? what
hast thou done? Rest thee here: this place has hospitality for every
one--refresh thyself! And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases
thee? What will serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have
I offer thee! "To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one,
what sayest thou! But give me, I pray thee---" What? what? Speak out!
"Another mask! A second mask!"

279. Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they
have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and
strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well t