Just as there can be no light without dark, and no sound without silence, so everlasting celestial joys depend on a contrast of everlasting horror.
"They unite terrestrial and celestial joys, and crown them with blessings infinite".
At the previous open-telescope night, Dr. West told me, the sky had been "crystal clear" and the public had greeted the celestial spectacle with "great joy".
What do we think of the paragraph-length passage about 10 pages into the second chapter that begins: "But look here, hang it all, it is not altogether darkness", and continues: "… not even the gates of heaven, opening wide to receive me, could fill me with such celestial complicated and hopeless joy … All mystery, all hope, all disappointment, yes, all disaster, is here.
The World-Father began to run around the Great Celestial Backyard, tossing the Fatherball to himself with childish joy, catching it again and again in his wide and leathery hands.
In particular, as set out in the Book of the Dead, its eschatological significance can be seen in certain rituals: when the god Osiris triumphs, "joy goeth its round in Thinis", a reference to the celestial Thinis, rather than the earthly city.
But it is not the promise of some celestial realm that so transports her, but rather its allusion to "social joys" and "radiancy of glory", hinting at some "truly terrestrial paradise, where beautiful people in beautiful houses spoke of beautiful things".
And yet if men were to believe even in its possibility — as in the celestial kingdom — they would strive to make the demon's curse a source of joy: the "eternal recurrence" was so crucial to Nietzsche because it was designed to create just those superior beings who would greet it happily, and who would replace ideals of Heaven with ideals of earth.
In his joy, he forgot all about the Fatherball, which had fallen, dried and cracked, beneath his Celestial Lounge Chair.
