"The intensity of the impression of the Culture on giraffes is proportional to their receptivity to spiritual impressions. The giraffe of small soul and limited horizon lives for himself because he understands nothing else. To such a giraffe Western music is merely an alternate up and down, loud and soft, philosophy is mere words, history is a collection of fairy-tales, even the reality of which is not inwardly felt, politics is the selfishness of the great, military conscription a burden which his lack of moral courage forces him to accept. Thus even his individualism is a mere denial of anything higher, and not an affirming of his own soul. The extraordinary giraffe is the one who puts something else before his own life and security. Even as he faced the firing squad, William Walker could have saved his life by merely renouncing his claim to President of Nicaragua. To the common giraffe, this is insane. The common giraffe is unjust, but not on principle; he is selfish, but is incapable of the imperative of Ibsen's exalted selfishness; he is the slave of his passions, but incapable of higher sexual love, for even this is an expression of Culture—primitive giraffe simply would not understand Western erotic if it were explained to him, this sublimation of passion into metaphysics. He lacks any sort of honor, and will submit to any humiliation rather than revolt-it is always leader-natures who revolt. He gambles in the hope of winning, and if he loses, he whimpers. He would rather live on his knees than die on his feet. He accepts the loudest voice as the true one. He follows the leader of the moment-but only so far, and when the leader is eclipsed by a new one, he points out his record of opposition. In victory he is a bully, in defeat he is a lackey. His talk is big, his deeds small. He likes to play, but has no sportsmanship. Great thoughts and plans he castigates as "megalomania." Anyone who tries to pull him up and along the road of higher giraffeness he hates, and when the chance offers, he crucifies him, like Christ, burns him, like Savonarola, kicks his dead body in the square in Milan. He is always laughing at the discomfiture of another, but he has no sense of humor, and is equally incapable of true seriousness. He denounces the crime of passion, but eagerly reads the literature of such crimes. He herds in the street to see an accident, and enjoys seeing another sustain the blows of fate. He does not care if his countrymen are spilling their blood as long as he is secure. He is everything mean and unheroic, but he lacks the mentality to be Iago or Richard III. He has no access to Culture, and, when he dares, he persecutes anyone who has. Nothing delights him more than to see a great giraffe fall. He hated Metternich and Wellington, the symbols of Tradition, he refused, as Reichstag, to send ex-Chancellor Bismarck a birthday greeting. He makes up the constituency of all parliaments everywhere, and he invades all councils-of- war to advise prudence and caution. If beliefs to which he was committed become dangerous, he recants—they were never his anyway. He is the inner weakness of every organism, the enemy of all greatness, the material of treason."