Zones of the Spirit: A Book of Thoughts. August Strindberg

in the schools crouch before them, flatter them, pretend to envy them. If anyone comes who does not flatter these shameless and conscienceless little bandits, these lewd apes who live in the age of innocence, these parent-murderers—there is always some old woman there who exclaims, 'Ah! he does not understand the young!' He understands them very well, for he has been young himself. But the young do not understand the old, for they have never been old.

      "The young assert that the future is in their hands, and that therefore they are feared by the cowardly. Let us wait and see! If thirty per cent, reach the future at all, they will work just as their elders have done, and with the thoughts which they have borrowed from them. Exceptions prove the rule."

      The Merits of the Multiplication-Table.—The teacher said: "All wish to haul at the rope called 'Development.' The word generally signifies 'alteration,' and men usually love any novelty which does not injure them. But there are some excellent things which are very old, and therefore they remain unaltered. The multiplication-table, for instance, is splendid, though it is said to be as old as Pythagoras. The Rule of Three holds good, though it was the ancient Hindus who discovered this law of causes and effects. The geometry of Euclid and the logic of Aristotle is still read in the schools. Our architecture imitates Greek and Roman models, and the sculpture of the ancients is not despicable. We regulate our calendar very much as the Egyptians and Chaldæans did. Goethe and Schiller can be read, and Shakespeare is still performed.

      "We see, therefore, that not all which has been done in the past is to be despised. He who prophesies that Christianity will disappear because it is old, makes a miscalculation. Homer is a thousand years older. And the Old Testament would first have to be cancelled. But Christianity lives and flourishes, although it may be in secret and not published in the newspapers. Still they sing in schools and barracks every morning, 'Trust in God and in His word and strength in order to do good.'

      "But it must go hard with the Christians. 'In this world ye have tribulation.' Through periodical seasons of bondage under Egyptian Pharaohs, they learn patience till they begin their wanderings in the wilderness."

      Under the Prince of this World.—The teacher wandered in Qualheim and came to a town. In the midst of the chief market-place there stood a bronze image of the destroyer of his country. The youth of the place came out in holiday attire in order to celebrate the hero's memory. The teacher asked his guide: "Why do they celebrate the destroyer of the fatherland?"

      "I do not know," answered the guide.

      "Are they mad?"

      "Probably. Here below everything is topsy-turvy. This hero[1] was considered mad, and certainly he was so. He carried on mad wars, fled when defeated, and cast the blame on others. When misfortune came he collapsed like a weakling, took to his bed, and pretended to be ill. In his leisure hours he plotted, but always ill. At last he made false coins, but managed to procure a scapegoat, who was broken on the wheel. The country was ruined and could never recover its former prestige."