Young Ofeg's Ditties/Ditty 33

​When I go to the town and people stare and gape in the market and street, it is a habit of mine never to drop my eyes without looking at each and every man. I have often noticed that the one sneaked by me and the other looked meaningly at his neighbour, and that they all mumbled something under their breath, but I knew not if it was about me, and I would not touch their dirty burdens. But once lately I got a long yellow-green look that I held in the palm of my hand for examination; but before I could test this disgusting expression in the crucible of my thoughts, I heard a voice speaking close to me.

"He harbours the devil of pride."

Then I turned round and saw him who had cast the yellow-green look, and who had spoken the words. He turned his back to me quickly, but he could not conceal how his clothes hung bedaubed with the yellow-green stuff. And I went close up behind his neck and said:—

​"You who turn away with the idea of concealing that you soiled yourself with the vomit of your own mind, listen now to me! What is it that you say about pride? What do you know about pride? You only know one kind of pride, your own and that of the like of you. That which inflates the soul with wind, without being able to hinder it from collapsing suddenly, as soon as any one points a finger towards it. You know the low vulgar pride, the dastard pride that sticks its nose in the air—whilst inwardly a spirit of shame sits in you, and gnaws at you and fleers at you, so that as you walk along you stumble over a stone or fall into a ditch. Your pride is not genuine, you wear it as a bargee would wear the dress of a knight, you strut with it with as ill a grace as if you had donned a decoration, knowing in your soul that you deserved it not; that is why you feel conscious of being ludicrous, and why you are ashamed.

"Why then do you speak of pride, you who know no other than your own and that of your equals? What do you know of the true, great ​pride, that which surpasses all other feeling upon earth, that which rings like true metal and makes the brow as clear and as open as the sea on a sunshine day. That is the pride that he who casts malignant looks about him, and who cringes when threatened with words more offensive than the lashes that fall upon the back of a slave—will never know. For that pride is the one that makes a man dare to pit his stubborn no against every yes, and kick over the old ideals as if they were potsherds and puffballs. Why do you speak of pride? you have never conceived what it feels like to be proud. Get you to your trading in the market-place, and your gossip at the street corner, but never seek to imprison the sunshine in your fist.

"Pride is a haughty virgin who loves alone a noble knight, with casque, and plume, and coat of mail."