I haven't read this book yet, but this excerpt came in my email and I thought it was intriguing.
Knecht had more to learn with his feet and his hands, his eyes, skin, ears and nose, than with his intellect, and Turu taught far more by example and by dumbshow than by words and prescription. The master rarely spoke coherently, and even when he did his words were only a supplement to his singularly impressive gestures. Knecht's apprenticeship differed little from the apprenticeship a young hunter or fisherman undergoes with a good master, and it gave him great pleasure, for he learned only the things that were already latent within him. He learned to lie in wait, to listen, to stalk, to watch, to be on his guard, to be alert, to spy and sense; but the game that he and his master stalked was not only fox and badger, otter and toad, bird and fish, but essence, the whole, meaning, relationship.
They sought to determine, to recognize, to guess and forecast the fleeting, unstable weather, to know the death hidden in a berry or a snakebite, to eavesdrop on the secret relations between clouds or storms and the phases of the moon, relations that affected the growth of crops as they did the haleness or doom of man and beast. No doubt they were really seeking the same ends as the science and technology of later centuries, dominance over nature and control over her laws; but they went about it in an entirely different way. They did not stand off from nature and try to penetrate into her secrets by violence. They were never opposed and hostile to nature but always part of her and reverently devoted to her. It is quite likely that they knew her better and dealt more wisely with her. But one thing was utterly impossible for them: not even in their most audacious moments would it have occurred to them to meet nature and the world of spirits without fear, let alone feel superior to them. Such hubris was unthinkable; they could not have imagined having any other attitude but fear toward the forces of nature, toward death and the demons. Fear loomed over the life of man. It could not be overcome.
But it could be pacified, outwitted, masked, brought within bounds, placed within the orderly framework of life as a whole. The various systems of sacrifices served this purpose. Fear was the permanent pressure on the lives of these people, and without this high pressure their lives would have lacked stress, of course, but also lacked intensity. A man who had been able to ennoble his fear by transforming part of it into awe had gained a great deal. People of this sort, people whose fear had become a form of piety, were the good men and the progressive men of that age.
Herman Hesse
from The Glass Bead Game
