Lichtenberg asks:  When a head and a book come into collision, and one sounds hollow, is it always the book?  And in another place:  Works like this are as a mirror; if an ass looks in, you cannot expect an apostle to look out.  We should do well to remember old Gellert’s fine and touching lament, that the best gifts of all find the fewest admirers, and that most men mistake the bad for the good,—­a daily evil that nothing can prevent, like a plague which no remedy can cure.  There is but one thing to be done, though how difficult!—­the foolish must become wise,—­and that they can never be.  The value of life they never know; they see with the outer eye but never with the mind, and praise the trivial because the good is strange to them:—­

  Nie kennen sie den Werth der Dinge,
    Ihr Auge schliesst, nicht ihr Verstand;
  Sie loben ewig das Geringe
    Weil sie das Gute nie gekannt.

To the intellectual incapacity which, as Goethe says, fails to recognize and appreciate the good which exists, must be added something which comes into play everywhere, the moral baseness of mankind, here taking the form of envy.  The new fame that a man wins raises him afresh over the heads of his fellows, who are thus degraded in proportion.  All conspicuous merit is obtained at the cost of those who possess none; or, as Goethe has it in the Westoestlicher Divan, another’s praise is one’s own depreciation—­

  Wenn wir Andern Ehre geben
  Muessen wir uns selbst entadeln.

We see, then, how it is that, whatever be the form which excellence takes, mediocrity, the common lot of by far the greatest number, is leagued against it in a conspiracy to resist, and if possible, to suppress it.  The pass-word of this league is a bas le merite.  Nay more; those who have done something themselves, and enjoy a certain amount of fame, do not care about the appearance of a new reputation, because its success is apt to throw theirs into the shade.  Hence, Goethe declares that if we had to depend for our life upon the favor of others, we should never have lived at all; from their desire to appear important themselves, people gladly ignore our very existence:—­

Haette ich gezaudert zu werden, Bis man mir’s Leben geoegnut, Ich waere noch nicht auf Erden, Wie ihr begreifen koennt, Wenn ihr seht, wie sie sich geberden, Die, um etwas zu scheinen, Mich gerne mochten verneinen.

Honor, on the contrary, generally meets with fair appreciation, and is not exposed to the onslaught of envy; nay, every man is credited with the possession of it until the contrary is proved.  But fame has to be won in despite of envy, and the tribunal which awards the laurel is composed of judges biased against the applicant from the very first.  Honor is something which we are able and ready to share with everyone; fame suffers encroachment and is rendered more unattainable