Section 140 Hero Worship. I.1
Do2 not think it a mean thing to look up to (zu) those who are superior to yourselves3. On the contrary, you will find in practice4, that it is only the meanest hearts, the shallowest and the basest (S. 128, N. 11) who feel no admiration, but (S. 6, N. 10) only envy for those who are better than themselves, who delight in5 finding fault with them, blackening (S. 1, N. 3) their character, and showing that they are not after all so much superior to other6 people; while7 it is the noblest-hearted, the very men who are most worthy to be admired themselves, who feel8 most the pleasure, the joy, and the strength of reverence (S. 3, N. 2); of9 having some one whom they can look up to and admire; some one in whose company they can forget10 themselves, their own interest, their own pleasure, their own honour and11 glory, and cry: “Him I must hear; him I must follow; to him I must cling, whatever12 may betide!”
Notes
1 Heldenverehrung, f.
2 Do — thing, Halte es nicht für zu gering.
3 Use the second person plural; to be superior to a person, einem weit überlegen sein.
4 in practice = always.
5 in — them = to discover weaknesses in (an, with dat.) them.
6 to other people = to others.
7 while — men, während die hochherzigsten Menschen, gerade diejenigen.
8 ‘to feel’, here empfinden; ‘most’ here = deepest, am tiefsten; pleasure, Genuß, m.
9 In order to connect this sentence more closely with the preceding, I propose to say: ‘the pleasure (Genuß, m.) of having (S. 34, N. 10) some one to (zu) whom they can look up, and whom they can admire’. The auxiliary ‘can’ must be omitted in the first instance.
10 Where must you place the two verbs, and in what order?
11 It is a matter of course that the words ‘their own’ must be repeated here in German. Why?
12 Whatever (Was auch) may happen.