OUR VIRTUES

214. OUR Virtues? — It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues, although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on account of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at a little distance from us.

We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we firstlings of the twentieth century — with all our dangerous curiosity, our multifariousness and art of disguising, our mellow and seemingly sweetened cruelty in sense and spirit — we shall presumably, IF we must have virtues, have those only which have come to agreement with our most secret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most ardent requirements: well, then, let us look for them in our labyrinths! — where, as we know, so many things lose themselves, so many things get quite