Like a wise man of the orient, I was completely lost in a series of holy daydreams and in quiet contemplation of the eternal essences, particularly yours and mine. Greatness in repose, say the masters, is the highest object of plastic art. And without intending to, and without exerting myself excessively, I shaped into poetry our eternal essences in this admirable style. I remembered and saw how we looked as soft sleep embraced the lovers in the middle of the act of love. Now and then one of them opened an eye, smiled at the sweet sleep of the other, and woke up enough to start a playful word, a caress. But before the wantonness thus begun was completed we both sank, closely entwined, back into the blessed womb of a half-conscious self-forgetfulness.

With the greatest displeasure I now thought about the terrible people who would like to subtract sleep from life. They have probably never slept, and also never lived. Why then are the gods gods, if not because they consciously and intentionally do nothing, because they understand this and are masters of it? And just think how poets, wise men, and saints strive to equal the gods in this! How they compete in praise of solitude, of leisure, and of a liberal unconcern and inactivity! And how rightly so. For everything which is good and beautiful exists already and maintains itself by its own power. Why then the necessity for all this striving and progress without cease and without purpose? Can this storm and stress give nourishment or beautiful form to the infinite plant of humanity, which quietly grows and takes shape by itself? This empty, restless striving is nothing but a Nordic bad habit and produces nothing but boredom, alien and yet our own. And with what does it begin and end if not with the antipathy, which is so widespread now, to the world? The inexperienced, conceited man, not even suspecting that his antipathy betrays a lack of sense and reason, considers it a superior sort of discontent with the universal despicability of the world and of life, about whose true nature he however has not the faintest inkling. He can't of course, for work and usefulness are Death’s Angels who with fiery swords block man’s return to Paradise. Only with calmness and gentleness, in the holy silence of genuine passivity can one regain access to one's entire being and contemplate the world and life. How does all intellectual and poetic creation come about if not by wholly surrendering oneself to the influence of some force of genius? And yet the actual speaking and structuring are only incidental in all art and science; the essence consists of the internal act of intellectual and poetic creation, and that is possible only through passivity. To be sure, it is intentional, arbitrary, and one-sided, but it is still passivity. The more beautiful the climate, the more passive the people. Only Italians know how to walk; and only Orientals know how to rest: where has the human spirit taken finer and sweeter shape than in India? And in all parts of the world, it is the right to idleness which distinguishes nobles from commoners; it is in fact the true principle of nobility.

Finally, where is more pleasure, and more permanence, strength and spirit of pleasure? In women, whose relationship we call passivity? Or in men, among whom the transition from excessive rage to boredom is faster than the transition from good to evil?

Really, we should not neglect the study of idleness so criminally but should make it an art and a science, even a religion! To sum up: the more divine a man or a work of man is, the more similar they are to a plant, which, of all nature’s forms, is the most moral and the most beautiful. And therefore, the highest, most nearly perfect life would be nothing but a pure vegetating.

Content in the pleasure of my existence, I undertook to rise above all finite, and thus despicable, goals and projects. In this undertaking, nature herself seemed to strengthen me and to exhort me in many-voiced chorales to further idleness, when suddenly a new phenomenon revealed itself. I thought I was sitting, invisible, in a theater. On one side one saw the familiar stage, lights, and painted scenery; on the other, a huge mob of spectators, a veritable sea of inquisitive heads and participating eyes. On the right side of the foreground, instead of scenery, one saw the figure of Prometheus, who was making men. He was fettered by a long chain and worked with the greatest urgency and exertion; a few gigantic apprentices stood by him, incessantly lashing him and urging him on. Clay and other materials were present in super-abundance. He used fire from a large coal oven. Across the way one saw the deified Hercules, a mute figure, as usual with Hebe on his lap. On the front part of the stage a crowd of youthful figures, very happy and obviously not living merely for appearances, was running about and talking. The youngest of these were like little cupids, the older ones like pictures of fauns; but each had his own manner, a striking originality of face. And all of them bore a similarity to the Devil of Christian painters or poets; one might have called them Satanisks.

One of the smallest of them said, "He who does not reject can not accept; to do either, one must do both infinitely, and the right note is struck by toying with men. So isn't a certain esthetic malice an essential part of a harmonious education?"

"Nothing is more insane," said another, "than when moralists reproach you men for your egoism. They are completely wrong: for what god can be venerable for a man who is not his own god? Of course men err in believing that they have an ego; but if you want to think that your body or your name or your possessions warrant such a belief, at least a dwelling is ready in case an ego should ever come along."

"And it is only fitting that you honor this Prometheus.," said one of the largest. "He made you all and still turns out a few of your kind."

In fact, the apprentices threw each new man, as soon as he was finished, down among the spectators, where one could immediately no longer tell him apart, so alike were they all.

"The only thing wrong is his method," the Satanisk continued. "How could one want to make only men? Those aren't even the right tools." With that he gestured toward a crude figure of the god of gardens which stood right at the back of the stage between a cupid and a very beautiful, unclothed Venus. "To that extent, our friend Hercules, who could keep fifty girls, heroic ones at that, busy in one night for the salvation of mankind, was more nearly right. He also worked, and strangled many dreadful monsters, but the goal of his career was always a noble idleness; and it is for that reason that he made it to Olympus. Not so with this Prometheus, the inventor of education and enlightenment. You got it from him, whatever it is that keeps you from ever resting, that drives you on and on. It comes from him, this need when you have nothing else to do, to try to build character or to look at each other and try to figure yourselves out. Such an enterprise is vile. But Prometheus, because he seduced men into work, must now also work, whether he wants to or not. He will have boredom enough and never be freed of his fetters."