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The wanderer. He who has come only in part to a freedom of reason cannot feel on earth otherwise than as a wanderer-though not as a traveler towards a final goal, for this does not exist. But he does want to observe, and keep his eyes open for everything that actually occurs in the world; therefore he must not attach his heart too firmly to any individual thing; there must be something wandering within him, which takes its joy in change and transitoriness. To be sure, such a man will have bad nights, when he is tired and finds closed the gates to the city that should offer him rest; perhaps in addition, as in the Orient, the desert reaches up to the gate; predatory animals howl now near, now far; a strong wind stirs; robbers lead off his pack-animals. Then for him the frightful night sinks over the desert like a second desert, and his heart becomes tired of wandering. If the morning sun then rises, glowing like a divinity of wrath, and the city opens up, he sees in the faces of its inhabitants perhaps more of desert, dirt, deception, uncertainty, than outside the gates - and the day is almost worse than the night. So it may happen sometimes to the wanderer; but then, as recompense, come the ecstatic mornings of other regions and days. Then nearby in the dawning light he already sees the bands of muses dancing past him in the mist of the mountains. Afterwards, he strolls quietly in the equilibrium of his forenoon soul, under trees from whose tops and leafy corners only good and bright things are thrown down to him, the gifts of all those free spirits who are at home in mountain, wood, and solitude, and who are, like him, in their sometimes merry, sometimes contemplative way, wanderers and philosophers. Born out of the mysteries of the dawn, they ponder how the day can have such a pure, transparent, transfigured and cheerful face between the hours of ten and twelve-they seek the philosophy of the forenoon.

Human, All Too Human

Among Friends

An Epilogue

1

Fine, with one another silent,
Finer, with one another laughing
Under heaven's silky cloth
Leaning over books and moss
With friends lightly, loudly laughing
Each one showing white teeth shining.

If I did well, let us be silent,
If I did badly, let us laugh
And do it bad again by half,
More badly done, more badly laugh,
Until the grave, when down we climb

Friends! Well! What do you say?
Amen! Until we meet again!

2

Don't excuse it! Don't forgive!
You happy, heart?free people, give
This unreasonable book1 of mine
Ear and heart and sheltering!
Truly, friends, my own unreason
Did not grow to earn a curse!

What I find, what I am seeking
Was that ever in a book?
Honor one from the fools' legion!
Learn from out of this fool's book
How reason can be brought?"to reason"!

So then, friends, what do you say?
Amen! Until we meet again.