OF SELF-DEPRECIATION.
Now I am going to tell you how humility came into the world.
Pygmeewas small of stature, and liked looking over other people’s heads. In which he was seldom successful, because he was so very small.
He went on a journey to look for people smaller than himself, but he could not find them. And his longing to look down on them became more and more intolerable.
At last he came to Patagonia, where people are so tall that even the children just born look down on their fathers.
Pygmeedid not like this—in other people. But in his despair of finding any smaller than himself, he bethought himself of a plan. He invented a virtue, which proclaimed as its first principle, “Whosoever is taller than Pygmee must stoop till he comes within Pygmee’s line of vision,”—and the novelty made its way. All the Patagonians became virtuous. When any one, by walking upright, sinned against the “first principles” of Pygmee’s virtue, he was punished in a peculiar way. Every one who was bowed down and virtuous jumped up and caught him round the neck till his head reached the level of Patagonian good conduct. And the man who was strong enough to carry all Patagonia on his shoulders, without becoming virtuous, was set in the pillory, with a collar round his neck, and a word inscribed thereon in the Patagonian tongue, which, being literally translated, signifies—
“THIS MAN MADE HIMSELF OBNOXIOUS TO PYGMEE.”
“THIS MAN MADE HIMSELF OBNOXIOUS TO PYGMEE.”
“THIS MAN MADE HIMSELF OBNOXIOUS TO PYGMEE.”
“THIS MAN MADE HIMSELF OBNOXIOUS TO PYGMEE.”
People have tacitly agreed, however, to express it in our language by—“Pride.”
Multatuli.
Multatuli.
Multatuli.
Multatuli.