Note 183 — FIFTEENTH JUBILEE.

According to Borreux, the engineer, literally only every thousandth shot from small-arms hits. So is it in all cases; fear death, and then there stand flower-pots ready to fall from chamber-windows, lightnings from the blue sky, air-guns going off, polypuses in the heart, mad dogs, robbers, every gash in the finger, aqua toffana, proud flesh, &c., in short, all nature—that ever-going, crushing cochineal-mill—stands with innumerable open scissors of fate round about thee, and thou hast no consolation, save this, that—nevertheless people grow eighty years old. Fear impoverishment: then fire, flood, famine, and war, banditti and revolutions, set upon thee with greedy claws and fangs; and yet, thou rich man! the poor man—creeping along under the same birds of prey—becomes at last as rich as thou. March, therefore, boldly through the slumbering lion-herd of dangers, lying on the right and left, and go up to the fountain, only do not wantonly wake them up; of course a hell-god drags down individuals who feared nothing; but so, too, does a higher God draw up individuals who expected nothing; and fear and hope are swallowed in one common night.