Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays--and, if I gather rightly, no other religion is any longer preached--let the psychologist have his ears open through all the vanity, through all the noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of SELF-CONTEMPT.

It belongs to the overshadowing and uglifying of Europe, which has been on the increase for a century (the first symptoms of which are already specified documentarily in a thoughtful letter of Galiani to Madame d'Epinay)--IF IT IS NOT REALLY THE CAUSE THEREOF! The man of "modern ideas," the conceited ape, is excessively dissatisfied with himself--this is perfectly certain.

He suffers, and his vanity wants him only "to suffer with his fellows." 223.

The hybrid European--a tolerably ugly plebeian, taken all in all--absolutely requires a costume: he needs history as a storeroom of costumes.

To be sure, he notices that none of the costumes fit him properly--he changes and changes.