guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a case,
carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman,
punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his
sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the
animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a
MASTER by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has
value! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of
those even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the
whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain,
and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing,
which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks
to deck itself out as something superior--there is a regular cult of
suffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called "sympathy" by such
groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that
strikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest
form of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet,
"GAI SABER" ("gay science," in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as
a protection against it.