Macmillan

there
46 BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
shame of a God to go about in? A "
questionworth asking!
it would be strange if some mystichas not alreadyventured
on the same kind of thing.There are proceedingsof such
a delicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with
coarseness and make them unrecognisable; there are
actions
of love and of an extravagantmagnanimity after
which nothingcan be wiser than to take a stick and thrash
the witness soundly:one therebyobscures his recollection.
Many a one is able to obscure and abuse his own memory,
in order at least to have vengeance on this sole party in the
secret: shame is inventive. They are not the worst things
of which one is most ashamed: there is not onlydeceit behind
a mask
"
is so much goodnessin craft. I could
imaginethat a man with somethingcostlyand fragileto
conceal,would roll throughlifeclumsilyand rotundlylike
an old,green, heavily-hooped wine-cask: the refinement of
his shame requiring it to be so. A man who has depthsin
his shame meets his destinyand his delicatedecisions upon
of which his nearest and most intimate friends may
be ignorant;his mortal
dangerconceals itselffrom their eyes,
pathswhich few ever reach,and with regardto the existence
and equallyso his regainedsecurityṢuch a hidden nature,
which instinctively employs speechfor silence and concealment,
and
is inexhaustiblein evasion of communication,desires
and insists that a mask of himself shall occupy his
place in the hearts and heads of his friends;and supposing
he does not desire it,his eyes will some day be opened to
the fact that there is neverthelessa mask of him there" and
that it is well to be so. Everyprofoundspirit needs a mask;
nay, more, around every profoundspirithere continually
grows a mask,owing to the constantlyfalsețhat is to say,
superficial interpretation of every word he utters,every step
he takes,every signof lifehe manifests.
II