diff options
Diffstat (limited to '5652-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 5652-h/5652-h.htm | 6074 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5652-h/images/ludovici.png | bin | 0 -> 16732 bytes |
2 files changed, 6074 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/5652-h/5652-h.htm b/5652-h/5652-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd7c5af --- /dev/null +++ b/5652-h/5652-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6074 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thoughts out of Season, Part I, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thoughts out of Season, Part I, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Thoughts out of Season, Part I</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 4, 2002 [eBook #5652]<br /> +[Most recently updated: January 22, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Holden McGroin</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON, PART I ***</div> + +<h3>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h3> + +<p class="center">OF</p> + +<h2 class="no-break">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>The First Complete and Authorised English Translation</i></p> + +<p class="center">EDITED BY</p> + +<h3>DR. OSCAR LEVY</h3> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/ludovici.png" width="125" height="125" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">VOLUME ONE</p> + +<h1>THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON</h1> + +<p class="center">PART ONE</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Of the First Impression of<br/> +One Thousand Copies<br/> +this is</i></p> + +<h3><i>No.</i> 1</h3> + +<h4>FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</h4> + +<h2>THOUGHTS<br/> +OUT OF SEASON</h2> + +<p class="center"> +PART I</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>DAVID STRAUSS, THE CONFESSOR<br/> +AND THE WRITER</i></p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH</i></p> + +<p class="center">TRANSLATED BY</p> + +<h3>ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h3>CONTENTS.</h3> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#note">EDITORIAL NOTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#england">NIETZSCHE IN ENGLAND (BY THE EDITOR)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#trans">TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO DAVID STRAUSS AND RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#strauss">DAVID STRAUSS, THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#wagner">RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="note"></a>EDITORIAL NOTE.</h2> + +<hr /> + +<p> +THE Editor begs to call attention to some of the difficulties he had to +encounter in preparing this edition of the complete works of Friedrich +Nietzsche. Not being English himself, he had to rely upon the help of +collaborators, who were somewhat slow in coming forward. They were also few in +number; for, in addition to an exact knowledge of the German language, there +was also required sympathy and a certain enthusiasm for the startling ideas of +the original, as well as a considerable feeling for poetry, and that highest +form of it, religious poetry. +</p> + +<p> +Such a combination—a biblical mind, yet one open to new +thoughts—was not easily found. And yet it was necessary to find +translators with such a mind, and not be satisfied, as the French are and must +be, with a free though elegant version of Nietzsche. What is impossible and +unnecessary in French—a faithful and powerful rendering of the psalmistic +grandeur of Nietzsche —is possible and necessary in English, which is a +rougher tongue of the Teutonic stamp, and moreover, like German, a tongue +influenced and formed by an excellent version of the Bible. The English would +never be satisfied, as Bible-ignorant France is, with a Nietzsche <i>à l'Eau de +Cologne</i>—they would require the natural, strong, real Teacher, and +would prefer his outspoken words to the finely-chiselled sentences of the +<i>raconteur</i>. It may indeed be safely predicted that once the English +people have recovered from the first shock of Nietzsche's thoughts, their +biblical training will enable them, more than any other nation, to appreciate +the deep piety underlying Nietzsche's Cause. +</p> + +<p> +As this Cause is a somewhat holy one to the Editor himself, he is ready to +listen to any suggestions as to improvements of style or sense coming from +qualified sources. The Editor, during a recent visit to Mrs. Foerster-Nietzsche +at Weimar, acquired the rights of translation by pointing out to her that in +this way her brother's works would not fall into the hands of an ordinary +publisher and his staff of translators: he has not, therefore, entered into any +engagement with publishers, not even with the present one, which could hinder +his task, bind him down to any text found faulty, or make him consent to +omissions or the falsification or "sugaring" of the original text to further +the sale of the books. He is therefore in a position to give every attention to +a work which he considers as of no less importance for the country of his +residence than for the country of his birth, as well as for the rest of Europe. +</p> + +<p> +It is the consciousness of the importance of this work which makes the Editor +anxious to point out several difficulties to the younger student of Nietzsche. +The first is, of course, not to begin reading Nietzsche at too early an age. +While fully admitting that others may be more gifted than himself, the Editor +begs to state that he began to study Nietzsche at the age of twenty-six, and +would not have been able to endure the weight of such teaching before that +time. Secondly, the Editor wishes to dissuade the student from beginning the +study of Nietzsche by reading first of all his most complicated works. Not +having been properly prepared for them, he will find the <i>Zarathustra</i> +abstruse, the <i>Ecce Homo</i> conceited, and the <i>Antichrist</i> violent. He +should rather begin with the little pamphlet on Education, the <i>Thoughts out +of Season</i>, <i>Beyond Good and Evil</i>, or the <i>Genealogy of Morals</i>. +Thirdly, the Editor wishes to remind students of Nietzsche's own advice to +them, namely: to read him slowly, to think over what they have read, and not to +accept too readily a teaching which they have only half understood. By a too +ready acceptance of Nietzsche it has come to pass that his enemies are, as a +rule, a far superior body of men to those who call themselves his eager and +enthusiastic followers. Surely it is not every one who is chosen to combat a +religion or a morality of two thousand years' standing, first within and then +without himself; and whoever feels inclined to do so ought at least to allow +his attention to be drawn to the magnitude of his task. +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="england"></a>NIETZSCHE IN ENGLAND:</h2> + +<h4>AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE EDITOR.</h4> + +<p> +DEAR ENGLISHMEN,—In one of my former writings I have made the remark that +the world would have seen neither the great Jewish prophets nor the great +German thinkers, if the people from among whom these eminent men sprang had not +been on the whole such a misguided, and, in their misguidedness, such a tough +and stubborn race. The arrow that is to fly far must be discharged from a well +distended bow: if, therefore, anything is necessary for greatness, it is a +fierce and tenacious opposition, an opposition either of open contempt, or of +malicious irony, or of sly silence, or of gross stupidity, an opposition +regardless of the wounds it inflicts and of the precious lives it sacrifices, +an opposition that nobody would dare to attack who was not prepared, like the +Spartan of old, to return either with his shield or on it. +</p> + +<p> +An opposition so devoid of pity is not as a rule found amongst you, dear and +fair-minded Englishmen, which may account for the fact that you have neither +produced the greatest prophets nor the greatest thinkers in this world. You +would never have crucified Christ, as did the Jews, or driven Nietzsche into +madness, as did the Germans—you would have made Nietzsche, on account of +his literary faculties, Minister of State in a Whig Ministry, you would have +invited Jesus Christ to your country houses, where he would have been +worshipped by all the ladies on account of his long hair and interesting looks, +and tolerated by all men as an amusing, if somewhat romantic, foreigner. I know +that the current opinion is to the contrary, and that your country is +constantly accused, even by yourselves, of its insularity; but I, for my part, +have found an almost feminine receptivity amongst you in my endeavour to bring +you into contact with some ideas of my native country—a receptivity +which, however, has also this in common with that of the female mind, that +evidently nothing sticks deeply, but is quickly wiped out by what any other +lecturer, or writer, or politician has to tell you. I was prepared for +indifference—I was not prepared for receptivity and that benign lady's +smile, behind which ladies, like all people who are only clever, usually hide +their inward contempt for the foolishness of mere men! I was prepared for +abuse, and even a good fight—I was not prepared for an extremely +faint-hearted criticism; I did not expect that some of my opponents would be so +utterly inexperienced in that most necessary work of literary execution. No, +no: give me the Germans or the Jews for executioners: they can do the hanging +properly, while the English hangman is like the Russian, to whom, when the rope +broke, the half-hanged revolutionary said: "What a country, where they cannot +hang a man properly!" What a country, where they do not hang philosophers +properly—which would be the proper thing to do to them—but smile at +them, drink tea with them, discuss with them, and ask them to contribute to +their newspapers! +</p> + +<p> +To get to the root of the matter: in spite of many encouraging signs, remarks +and criticisms, adverse or benevolent, I do not think I have been very +successful in my crusade for that European thought which began with Goethe and +has found so fine a development in Nietzsche. True, I have made many a convert, +but amongst them are very undesirable ones, as, for instance, some enterprising +publishers, who used to be the toughest disbelievers in England, but who have +now come to understand the "value" of the new gospel—but as neither this +gospel is exactly Christian, nor I, the importer of it, I am not allowed to +count my success by the conversion of publishers and sinners, but have to judge +it by the more spiritual standard of the quality of the converted. In this +respect, I am sorry to say, my success has been a very poor one. +</p> + +<p> +As an eager missionary, I have naturally asked myself the reason of my failure. +Why is there no male audience in England willing to listen to a manly and +daring philosophy? Why are there no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no hearts to +feel, no brains to understand? Why is my trumpet, which after all I know how to +blow pretty well, unable to shatter the walls of English prejudice against a +teacher whose school cannot possibly be avoided by any European with a higher +purpose in his breast?... There is plenty of time for thought nowadays for a +man who does not allow himself to be drawn into that aimless bustle of pleasure +business or politics, which is called modern life because outside that life +there is—just as outside those noisy Oriental cities-a desert, a +calmness, a true and almost majestic leisure, a leisure unprecedented in any +age, a leisure in which one may arrive at several conclusions concerning +English indifference towards the new thought. +</p> + +<p> +First of all, of course, there stands in the way the terrible abuse which +Nietzsche has poured upon the heads of the innocent Britishers. While France +and the Latin countries, while the Orient and India, are within the range of +his sympathies, this most outspoken of all philosophers, this prophet and +poet-philosopher, cannot find words enough to express his disgust at the +illogical, plebeian, shallow, utilitarian Englishman. It must certainly be +disagreeable to be treated like this, especially when one has a fairly good +opinion of one's self; but why do you take it so very, very seriously? Did +Nietzsche, perchance, spare the Germans? And aren't you accustomed to criticism +on the part of German philosophers? Is it not the ancient and time-honoured +privilege of the whole range of them from Leibnitz to Hegel — even of +German poets, like Goethe and Heine — to call you bad names and to use +unkind language towards you? Has there not always been among the few thinking +heads in Germany a silent consent and an open contempt for you and your ways; +the sort of contempt you yourselves have for the even more Anglo-Saxon culture +of the Americans? I candidly confess that in my more German moments I have felt +and still feel as the German philosophers do; but I have also my European turns +and moods, and then I try to understand you and even excuse you, and take your +part against earnest and thinking Germany. Then I feel like telling the German +philosophers that if you, poor fellows, had practised everything they preached, +they would have had to renounce the pleasure of abusing you long ago, for there +would now be no more Englishmen left to abuse! As it is, you have suffered +enough on account of the wild German ideals you luckily only partly believed +in: for what the German thinker wrote on patient paper in his study, you always +had to write the whole world over on tender human skins, black and yellow +skins, enveloping ungrateful beings who sometimes had no very high esteem for +the depth and beauty of German philosophy. And you have never taken revenge +upon the inspired masters of the European thinking-shop, you have never +reabused them, you have never complained of their want of worldly wisdom: you +have invariably suffered in silence and agony, just as brave and staunch Sancho +Panza used to do. For this is what you are, dear Englishmen, and however well +you brave, practical, materialistic John Bulls and Sancho Panzas may know this +world, however much better you may be able to perceive, to count, to judge, and +to weigh things than your ideal German Knight: there is an eternal law in this +world that the Sancho Panzas have to follow the Don Quixotes; for matter has to +follow the spirit, even the poor spirit of a German philosopher! So it has been +in the past, so it is at present, and so it will be in the future; and you had +better prepare yourselves in time for the eventuality. For if Nietzsche were +nothing else but this customary type of German philosopher, you would again +have to pay the bill largely; and it would be very wise on your part to study +him: Sancho Panza may escape a good many sad experiences by knowing his +master's weaknesses. But as Nietzsche no longer belongs to the Quixotic class, +as Germany seems to emerge with him from her youthful and cranky nebulosity, +you will not even have the pleasure of being thrashed in the company of your +Master: no, you will be thrashed all alone, which is an abominable thing for +any right-minded human being. "Solamen miseris socios habuisse malorum."<b><a +href="#footnote1">*</a></b> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="footnote1"></a> +[Footnote <b>*</b> : It is a comfort to the afflicted to have companions in +their distress.] +</p> + +<p> +The second reason for the neglect of Nietzsche in this country is that you do +not need him yet. And you do not need him yet because you have always possessed +the British virtue of not carrying things to extremes, which, according to the +German version, is an euphemism for the British want of logic and critical +capacity. You have, for instance, never let your religion have any great +influence upon your politics, which is something quite abhorrent to the moral +German, and makes him so angry about you. For the German sees you acting as a +moral and law-abiding Christian at home, and as an unscrupulous and +Machiavellian conqueror abroad; and if he refrains from the reproach of +hypocrisy, with which the more stupid continentals invariably charge you, he +will certainly call you a "British muddlehead." Well, I myself do not take +things so seriously as that, for I know that men of action have seldom time to +think. It is probably for this reason also that liberty of thought and speech +has been granted to you, the law-giver knowing very well all the time that you +would be much too busy to use and abuse such extraordinary freedom. Anyhow, it +might now be time to abuse it just a little bit, and to consider what an +extraordinary amalgamation is a Christian Power with imperialistic ideas. True, +there has once before been another Christian conquering and colonising empire +like yours, that of Venice—but these Venetians were thinkers compared +with you, and smuggled their gospel into the paw of their lion.... Why don't +you follow their example, in order not to be unnecessarily embarrassed by it in +your enterprises abroad? In this manner you could also reconcile the proper +Germans, who invariably act up to their theories, their Christianity, their +democratic principles, although, on the other hand, in so doing you would, I +quite agree, be most unfaithful to your own traditions, which are of a more +democratic character than those of any other European nation. +</p> + +<p> +For Democracy, as every schoolboy knows, was born in an English cradle: +individual liberty, parliamentary institutions, the sovereign rights of the +people, are ideas of British origin, and have been propagated from this island +over the whole of Europe. But as the prophet and his words are very often not +honoured in his own country, those ideas have been embraced with much more +fervour by other nations than by that in which they originated. The Continent +of Europe has taken the desire for liberty and equality much more seriously +than their levelling but also level-headed inventors, and the fervent +imagination of France has tried to put into practice all that was quite hidden +to the more sober English eye. Every one nowadays knows the good and the evil +consequences of the French Revolution, which swept over the whole of Europe, +throwing it into a state of unrest, shattering thrones and empires, and +everywhere undermining authority and traditional institutions. While this was +going on in Europe, the originator of the merry game was quietly sitting upon +his island smiling broadly at the excitable foreigners across the Channel, +fishing as much as he could out of the water he himself had so cleverly +disturbed, and thus in every way reaping the benefit from the mighty fight for +the apple of Eros which he himself had thrown amongst them. As I have +endeavoured above to draw a parallel between the Germans and the Jews, I may +now be allowed to follow this up with one between the Jews and the English. It +is a striking parallel, which will specially appeal to those religious souls +amongst you who consider themselves the lost tribes of our race (and who are +perhaps even more lost than they think),—and it is this: Just as the Jews +have brought Christianity into the world, but never accepted it themselves, +just as they, in spite of their <i>democratic offspring</i>, have always +remained the most conservative, exclusive, aristocratic, and religious people, +so have the English never allowed themselves to be intoxicated by the strong +drink of the natural equality of men, which they once kindly offered to all +Europe to quaff; but have, on the contrary, remained the most sober, the most +exclusive, the most feudal, the most conservative people of our continent. +</p> + +<p> +But because the ravages of Democracy have been less felt here than abroad, +because there is a good deal of the mediaeval building left standing over here, +because things have never been carried to that excess which invariably brings a +reaction with it—this reaction has not set in in this country, and no +strong desire for the necessity of it, no craving for the counterbalancing +influence of a Nietzsche, has arisen yet in the British mind. I cannot help +pointing out the grave consequences of this backwardness of England, which has +arisen from the fact that you have never taken any ideas or theories, not even +your own, seriously. Democracy, dear Englishmen, is like a stream, which all +the peoples of Europe will have to cross: they will come out of it cleaner, +healthier, and stronger, but while the others are already in the water, +plunging, puffing, paddling, losing their ground, trying to swim, and even +half-drowned, you are still standing on the other side of it, roaring +unmercifully about the poor swimmers, screamers, and fighters below,—but +one day you will have to cross this same river too, and when you enter it the +others will just be out of it, and will laugh at the poor English straggler in +their turn! +</p> + +<p> +The third and last reason for the icy silence which has greeted Nietzsche in +this country is due to the fact that he has—as far as I know—no +literary ancestor over here whose teachings could have prepared you for him. +Germany has had her Goethe to do this; France her Stendhal; in Russia we find +that fearless curiosity for all problems, which is the sign of a youthful, +perhaps too youthful nation; while in Spain, on the other hand, we have an old +and experienced people, with a long training away from Christianity under the +dominion of the Semitic Arabs, who undoubtedly left some of their blood +behind,—but I find great difficulty in pointing out any man over here who +could serve as a useful guide to the heights of the Nietzschean thought, except +one, who was not a Britisher. I am alluding to a man whose politics you used to +consider and whose writings you even now consider as fantastic, but who, like +another fantast of his race, may possess the wonderful gift of resurrection, +and come again to life amongst you—to Benjamin Disraeli. +</p> + +<p> +The Disraelian Novels are in my opinion the best and only preparation for those +amongst you who wish gradually to become acquainted with the Nietzschean +spirit. There, and nowhere else, will you find the true heroes of coming times, +men of moral courage, men whose failures and successes are alike admirable, men +whose noble passions have altogether superseded the ordinary vulgarities and +moralities of lower beings, men endowed with an extraordinary imagination, +which, however, is balanced by an equal power of reason, men already anointed +with a drop of that sacred and noble oil, without which the High +Priest-Philosopher of Modern Germany would not have crowned his Royal Race of +the Future. +</p> + +<p> +Both Disraeli and Nietzsche you perceive starting from the same pessimistic +diagnosis of the wild anarchy, the growing melancholy, the threatening Nihilism +of Modern Europe, for both recognised the danger of the age behind its loud and +forced "shipwreck gaiety," behind its big-mouthed talk about progress and +evolution, behind that veil of business-bustle, which hides its fear and utter +despair—but for all that black outlook they are not weaklings enough to +mourn and let things go, nor do they belong to that cheap class of society +doctors who mistake the present wretchedness of Humanity for sinfulness, and +wish to make their patient less sinful and still more wretched. Both Nietzsche +and Disraeli have clearly recognised that this patient of theirs is suffering +from weakness and not from sinfulness, for which latter some kind of strength +may still be required; both are therefore entirely opposed to a further dieting +him down to complete moral emaciation, but are, on the contrary, prescribing a +tonic, a roborating, a natural regime for him —advice for which both +doctors have been reproached with Immorality by their contemporaries as well as +by posterity. But the younger doctor has turned the tables upon their accusers, +and has openly reproached his Nazarene colleagues with the Immorality of +endangering life itself, he has clearly demonstrated to the world that their +trustful and believing patient was shrinking beneath their very fingers, he has +candidly foretold these Christian quacks that one day they would be in the +position of the quack skin-specialist at the fair, who, as a proof of his +medical skill, used to show to the peasants around him the skin of a completly +cured patient of his. Both Nietzsche and Disraeli know the way to health, for +they have had the disease of the age themselves, but they have—the one +partly, the other entirely— cured themselves of it, they have resisted +the spirit of their time, they have escaped the fate of their contemporaries; +they therefore, and they alone, know their danger. This is the reason why they +both speak so violently, why they both attack with such bitter fervour the +utilitarian and materialistic attitude of English Science, why they both so +ironically brush aside the airy and fantastic ideals of German +Philosophy—this is why they both loudly declare (to use Disraeli's words) +"that we are the slaves of false knowledge; that our memories are filled with +ideas that have no origin in truth; that we believe what our fathers credited, +who were convinced without a cause; that we study human nature in a charnel +house, and, like the nations of the East, pay divine honours to the maniac and +the fool." But if these two great men cannot refrain from such outspoken +vituperation—they also lead the way: they both teach the divinity of +ideas and the vileness of action without principle; they both exalt the value +of personality and character; they both deprecate the influence of society and +socialisation; they both intensely praise and love life, but they both pour +contempt and irony upon the shallow optimist, who thinks it delightful, and the +quietist, who wishes it to be calm, sweet, and peaceful. They thus both preach +a life of danger, in opposition to that of pleasure, of comfort, of happiness, +and they do not only preach this noble life, they also act it: for both have +with equal determination staked even their lives on the fulfilment of their +ideal. +</p> + +<p> +It is astonishing—but only astonishing to your superficial student of the +Jewish character—that in Disraeli also we find an almost Nietzschean +appreciation of that eternal foe of the Jewish race, the Hellenist, which makes +Disraeli, just like Nietzsche, confess that the Greek and the Hebrew are both +amongst the highest types of the human kind. It is not less +astonishing—but likewise easily intelligible for one who knows something +of the great Jews of the Middle Ages—that in Disraeli we discover that +furious enmity against the doctrine of the natural equality of men which +Nietzsche combated all his life. It was certainly the great Maimonides himself, +that spiritual father of Spinoza, who guided the pen of his Sephardic +descendant, when he thus wrote in his <i>Tancred</i>: "It is to be noted, +although the Omnipotent Creator might have formed, had it pleased him, in the +humblest of his creations, an efficient agent for his purpose that Divine +Majesty has never thought fit to communicate except with human beings of the +very highest order." +</p> + +<p> +But what about Christianity, to which Disraeli was sincerely attached, and +whose creation he always considered as one of the eternal glories of his race? +Did not the Divine Majesty think it fit then to communicate with the most +humble of its creatures, with the fishermen of Galilee, with the rabble of +Corinth, with the slaves, the women, the criminals of the Roman Empire? As I +wish to be honest about Disraeli, I must point out here, that his genius, +although the most prominent in England during his lifetime, and although +violently opposed to its current superstitions, still partly belongs to his +age—and for this very pardonable reason, that in his Jewish pride he +overrated and even misunderstood Christianity. He all but overlooked the narrow +connection between Christianity and Democracy. He did not see that in fighting +Liberalism and Nonconformity all his life, he was really fighting Christianity, +the Protestant Form of which is at the root of British Liberalism and +Individualism to this very day. And when later in his life Disraeli complained +that the disturbance in the mind of nations has been occasioned by "the +powerful assault on the Divinity of the Semitic Literature by the Germans," he +overlooked likewise the connection of this German movement with the same +Protestantism, from the narrow and vulgar middle-class of which have sprung all +those rationalising, unimaginative, and merely clever professors, who have so +successfully undermined the ancient and venerable lore. And thirdly, and worst +of all, Disraeli never suspected that the French Revolution, which in the same +breath he once contemptuously denounced as "the Celtic Rebellion against +Semitic laws," was, in spite of its professed attack against religion, really a +profoundly Christian, because a democratic and revolutionary movement. What a +pity he did not know all this! What a shower of splendid additional sarcasms he +would have poured over those flat-nosed Franks, had he known what I know now, +that it is the eternal way of the Christian to be a rebel, and that just as he +has once rebelled against us, he has never ceased pestering and rebelling +against any one else either of his own or any other creed. +</p> + +<p> +But it is so easy for me to be carried away by that favourite sport of mine, of +which I am the first inventor among the Jews—Christian baiting. You must +forgive this, however, in a Jew, who, while he has been baited for two thousand +years by you, likes to turn round now that the opportunity has come, and tries +to indulge on his part also in a little bit of that genial pastime. I candidly +confess it is delightful, and I now quite understand your ancestors hunting +mine as much as they could—had I been a Christian, I would, probably, +have done the same; perhaps have done it even better, for no one would now be +left to write any such impudent truisms against me— rest assured of that! +But as I am a Jew, and have had too much experience of the other side of the +question, I must try to control myself in the midst of victory; I must judge +things calmly; I must state fact honestly; I must not allow myself to be unjust +towards you. First of all, then, this rebelling faculty of yours is a Jewish +inheritance, an inheritance, however, of which you have made a more than +generous, a truly Christian use, because you did not keep it niggardly for +yourselves, but have distributed it all over the earth, from Nazareth to +Nishni-Novgorod, from Jerusalem to Jamaica, from Palestine to Pimlico, so that +every one is a rebel and an anarchist nowadays. But, secondly, I must not +forget that in every Anarchist, and therefore in every Christian, there is +also, or may be, an aristocrat—a man who, just like the anarchist, but +with a perfectly holy right, wishes to obey no laws but those of his own +conscience; a man who thinks too highly of his own faith and persuasion, to +convert other people to it; a man who, therefore, would never carry it to +Caffres and Coolis; a man, in short, with whom even the noblest and exclusive +Hebrew could shake hands. In Friedrich Nietzsche this aristocratic element +which may be hidden in a Christian has been brought to light, in him the +Christian's eternal claim for freedom of conscience, for his own priesthood, +for justification by his own faith, is no longer used for purposes of +destruction and rebellion, but for those of command and creation; in +him—and this is the key to the character of this extraordinary man, who +both on his father's and mother's side was the descendant of a long line of +Protestant Parsons—the Christian and Protestant spirit of anarchy became +so strong that he rebelled even against his own fellow-Anarchists, and told +them that Anarchy was a low and contemptible thing, and that Revolution was an +occupation fit only for superior slaves. But with this event the circle of +Christianity has become closed, and the exclusive House of Israel is now under +the delightful obligation to make its peace with its once lost and now +reforming son. +</p> + +<p> +The venerable Owner of this old house is still standing on its threshold: his +face is pale, his expression careworn, his eyes apparently scanning something +far in the distance. The wind—for there is a terrible wind blowing just +now—is playing havoc with his long white Jew-beard, but this white +Jew-beard of his is growing black again at the end, and even the sad eyes are +still capable of quite youthful flashes, as may be noticed at this very moment. +For the eyes of the old Jew, apparently so dreamy and so far away, have +suddenly become fixed upon something in the distance yonder. The old Jew looks +and looks— and then he rubs his eyes—and then he eagerly looks +again. And now he is sure of himself. His old and haggard face is lighting up, +his stooped figure suddenly becomes more erect, and a tear of joy is seen +running over his pale cheek into that long beard of his. For the old Jew has +recognised some one coming from afar—some one whom he had missed, but +never mentioned, for his Law forbade him to do this—some one, however, +for whom he had secretly always mourned, as only the race of the psalmists and +the prophets can mourn—and he rushes toward him, and he falls on his neck +and he kisses him, and he says to his servants: "Bring forth the best robe and +put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. And bring +hither the fatted calf, and kill it and let us eat and be merry!" AMEN. +</p> + +<p> +OSCAR LEVY. +</p> + +<p> +LONDON, <i>January</i> 1909. +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="trans"></a>TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.</h2> + +<p> +To the reader who knows Nietzsche, who has studied his <i>Zarathustra</i> and +understood it, and who, in addition, has digested the works entitled <i>Beyond +Good and Evil</i>, <i>The Genealogy of Morals</i>, <i>The Twilight of the +Idols</i>, and <i>The Antichrist</i>,— to such a reader everything in +this volume will be perfectly clear and comprehensible. In the attack on +Strauss he will immediately detect the germ of the whole of Nietzsche's +subsequent attitude towards too hasty contentment and the foolish beatitude of +the "easily pleased"; in the paper on Wagner he will recognise Nietzsche the +indefatigable borer, miner and underminer, seeking to define his ideals, +striving after self-knowledge above all, and availing himself of any +contemporary approximation to his ideal man, in order to press it forward as +the incarnation of his thoughts. Wagner the reformer of mankind! Wagner the +dithyrambic dramatist!—The reader who knows Nietzsche will not be misled +by these expressions. +</p> + +<p> +To the uninitiated reader, however, some words of explanation are due, not only +in regard to the two papers before us, but in regard to Nietzsche himself. So +much in our time is learnt from hearsay concerning prominent figures in +science, art, religion, or philosophy, that it is hardly possible for anybody +to-day, however badly informed he may be, to begin the study of any great +writer or scientist with a perfectly open mind. It were well, therefore, to +begin the study of Nietzsche with some definite idea as to his unaltered +purpose, if he ever possessed such a thing; as to his lifelong ideal, if he +ever kept one so long; and as to the one direction in which he always +travelled, despite apparent deviations and windings. Had he such a purpose, +such an ideal, such a direction? We have no wish to open a controversy here, +neither do we think that in replying to this question in the affirmative we +shall give rise to one; for every careful student of Nietzsche, we know, will +uphold us in our view. Nietzsche had one very definite and unaltered purpose, +ideal and direction, and this was "the elevation of the type man." He tells us +in <i>The Will to Power</i>: "All is truth to me that tends to elevate man!" To +this principle he was already pledged as a student at Leipzig; we owe every +line that he ever wrote to his devotion to it, and it is the key to all his +complexities, blasphemies, prolixities, and terrible earnestness. All was good +to Nietzsche that tended to elevate man; all was bad that kept man stationary +or sent him backwards. Hence he wrote <i>David Strauss</i>, <i>the Confessor +and Writer</i> (1873). +</p> + +<p> +The Franco-German War had only just come to an end, and the keynote of this +polemical pamphlet is, "Beware of the intoxication of success." When the whole +of Germany was delirious with joy over her victory, at a time when the +unquestioned triumph of her arms tended rather to reflect unearned glory upon +every department of her social organisation, it required both courage and +discernment to raise the warning voice and to apply the wet blanket. But +Nietzsche did both, and with spirit, because his worst fears were aroused. Smug +content (<i>erbärmliches Behagen</i>) was threatening to thwart his one +purpose—the elevation of man; smug content personified in the German +scholar was giving itself airs of omniscience, omnipotence, and ubiquity, and +all the while it was a mere cover for hidden rottenness and jejune pedantry. +</p> + +<p> +Nietzsche's attack on Hegelian optimism alone (pp. 46, 53-54), in the first +paper, fully reveals the fundamental idea underlying this essay; and if the +personal attack on Strauss seems sometimes to throw the main theme into the +background, we must remember the author's own attitude towards this aspect of +the case. Nietzsche, as a matter of fact, had neither the spite nor the +meanness requisite for the purely personal attack. In his <i>Ecce Homo</i>, he +tells us most emphatically: "I have no desire to attack particular +persons—I do but use a personality as a magnifying glass; I place it over +the subject to which I wish to call attention, merely that the appeal may be +stronger." David Strauss, in a letter to a friend, soon after the publication +of the first <i>Thought out of Season</i>, expresses his utter astonishment +that a total stranger should have made such a dead set at him. The same problem +may possibly face the reader on every page of this fssay: if, however, we +realise Nietzsche's purpose, if we understand his struggle to be one against +"Culture-Philistinism" in general, as a stemming, stultifying and therefore +degenerate factor, and regard David Strauss—as the author himself did, +that is to say, simply as a glass, focusing the whole light of our +understanding upon the main theme— then the Strauss paper is seen to be +one of such enormous power, and its aim appears to us so lofty, that, whatever +our views may be concerning the nature of the person assailed, we are forced to +conclude that, to Nietzsche at least, he was but the incarnation and concrete +example of the evil and danger then threatening to overtake his country, which +it was the object of this essay to expose. +</p> + +<p> +When we read that at the time of Strauss's death (February 7th, 1874) Nietzsche +was greatly tormented by the fear that the old scholar might have been hastened +to his end by the use that had been made of his personality in the first +<i>Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung</i>; when we remember that in the midst of this +torment he ejaculated, "I was indeed not made to hate and have +enemies!"—we are then in a better position to judge of the motives which, +throughout his life, led him to engage such formidable opponents and to +undertake such relentless attacks. It was merely his ruling principle that, all +is true and good that tends to elevate man; everything is bad and false that +keeps man stationary or sends him backwards. +</p> + +<p> +Those who may think that his attacks were often unwarrantable and ill-judged +will do well, therefore, to bear this in mind, that whatever his value or +merits may have been as an iconoclast, at least the aim he had was sufficiently +lofty and honourable, and that he never shirked the duties which he rightly or +wrongly imagined would help him to +</p> + +<p> +Wagner paper (1875-1876) we are faced by a somewhat different problem. Most +readers who will have heard of Nietzsche's subsequent denunciation of Wagner's +music will probably stand aghast before this panegyric of him; those who, like +Professor Saintsbury, will fail to discover the internal evidence in this essay +which points so infallibly to Nietzsche's <i>real</i> but still subconscious +opinion of his hero, may even be content to regard his later attitude as the +result of a complete <i>volte-face</i>, and at any rate a flat contradiction of +the one revealed in this paper. Let us, however, examine the internal evidence +we speak of, and let us also discuss the purpose and spirit of the essay. +</p> + +<p> +We have said that Nietzsche was a man with a very fixed and powerful ideal, and +we have heard what this ideal was. Can we picture him, then,—a young and +enthusiastic scholar with a cultured love of music, and particularly of +Wagner's music, eagerly scanning all his circle, the whole city and country in +which he lived—yea, even the whole continent on which he lived—for +something or some one that would set his doubts at rest concerning the +feasibility of his ideal? Can we now picture this young man coming face to face +with probably one of the greatest geniuses of his age—with a man whose +very presence must have been electric, whose every word or movement must have +imparted some power to his surroundings—with Richard Wagner? +</p> + +<p> +If we can conceive of what the mere attention, even, of a man like Wagner must +have meant to Nietzsche in his twenties, if we can form any idea of the +intoxicating effect produced upon him when this attention developed into +friendship, we almost refuse to believe that Nietzsche could have been critical +at all at first. In Wagner, as was but natural, he soon began to see the ideal, +or at least the means to the ideal, which was his one obsession. All his hope +for the future of Germany and Europe cleaved, as it were, to this highest +manifestation of their people's life, and gradually he began to invest his +already great friend with all the extra greatness which he himself drew from +the depths of his own soul. +</p> + +<p> +The friendship which grew between them was of that rare order in which neither +can tell who influences the other more. Wagner would often declare that the +beautiful music in the third act of Siegfried was to be ascribed to Nietzsche's +influence over him; he also adopted the young man's terminology in art matters, +and the concepts implied by the words "Dionysian" and "Apollonian" were +borrowed by him from his friend's discourses. How much Nietzsche owed to Wagner +may perhaps never be definitely known; to those who are sufficiently interested +to undertake the investigation of this matter, we would recommend Hans Belart's +book, <i>Nietzsche's Ethik</i>; in it references will be found which give some +clue as to the probable sources from which the necessary information may be +derived. In any case, however, the reciprocal effects of their conversations +will never be exactly known; and although it would be ridiculous to assume that +Nietzsche was essentially the same when he left as when he met him, what the +real nature of the change was it is now difficult to say. +</p> + +<p> +For some years their friendship continued firm, and grew ever more and more +intimate. <i>The Birth Of Tragedy</i> was one of the first public declarations +of it, and after its publication many were led to consider that Wagner's art +was a sort of resurrection of the Dionysian Grecian art. Enemies of Nietzsche +began to whisper that he was merely Wagner's "literary lackey"; many friends +frowned upon the promising young philologist, and questioned the exaggerated +importance he was beginning to ascribe to the art of music and to art in +general, in their influence upon the world; and all the while Nietzsche's one +thought and one aim was to help the cause and further the prospects of the man +who he earnestly believed was destined to be the salvation of European culture. +</p> + +<p> +Every great ideal coined in his own brain he imagined to be the ideal of his +hero; all his sublimest hopes for society were presented gratis, in his +writings, to Wagner, as though products of the latter's own mind; and just as +the prophet of old never possessed the requisite assurance to suppose that his +noblest ideas were his own, but attributed them to some higher and supernatural +power, whom he thereby learnt to worship for its fancied nobility of sentiment, +so Nietzsche, still doubting his own powers, created a fetich out of nis most +distinguished friend, and was ultimately wounded and well-nigh wrecked with +disappointment when he found that the Wagner of the Gotterdammerung and +Parsifal was not the Wagner of his own mind. +</p> + +<p> +While writing <i>Ecce Homo</i>, he was so well aware of the extent to which he +had gone in idealising his friend, that he even felt able to say: "<i>Wagner in +Bayreuth</i> is a vision of my own future.... Now that I can look back upon +this work, I would not like to deny that, at bottom, it speaks only of myself" +(p. 74). And on another page of the same book we read: "... What I heard, as a +young man, in Wagnerian music, had absolutely nothing to do with Wagner: when I +described Dionysian music, I only described what <i>I</i> had heard, and I thus +translated and transfigured all that I bore in my own soul into the spirit of +the new art. The strongest proof of this is my essay, <i>Wagner in +Bayreuth</i>: in all decidedly psychological passages of this book the reader +may simply read my name, or the name 'Zarathustra,' wherever the text contains +the name 'Wagner'" (p. 68). +</p> + +<p> +As we have already hinted, there are evidences of his having subconsciously +discerned the REAL Wagner, even in the heyday of their friendship, behind the +ideal he had formed of him; for his eyes were too intelligent to be deceived, +even though his understanding refused at first to heed the messages they sent +it: both the <i>Birth of Tragedy</i> and <i>Wagner in Bayreuth</i> are with us +to prove this, and not merely when we read these works between the lines, but +when we take such passages as those found on pp. 115, 149, 150, 151, 156, 158, +159 of this book quite literally. +</p> + +<p> +Nietzsche's infatuation we have explained; the consequent idealisation of the +object of his infatuation he himself has confessed; we have also pointed +certain passages which we believe show beyond a doubt that almost everything to +be found in <i>The Case of Wagner</i> and <i>Nietzsche contra Wagner</i> was +already subconscious in our author, long before he had begun to feel even a +coolness towards his hero: let those who think our interpretation of the said +passages is either strained or unjustified turn to the literature to which we +have referred and judge for themselves. It seems to us that those distinguished +critics who complain of Nietzsche's complete <i>volte-face</i> and his +uncontrollable recantations and revulsions of feeling have completely +overlooked this aspect of the question. +</p> + +<p> +It were well for us to bear in mind that we are not altogether free to dispose +of Nietzsche's attitude to Wagner, at any given period in their relationship, +with a single sentence of praise or of blame. After all, we are faced by a +problem which no objectivity or dispassionate detachment on our parts can +solve. Nietzsche endowed both Schopenhauer and Wagner with qualities and +aspirations so utterly foreign to them both, that neither of them would have +recognised himself in the images he painted of them. His love for them was +unusual; perhaps it can only be fully understood emotionally by us: like all +men who are capable of very great love, Nietzsche lent the objects of his +affection anything they might happen to lack in the way of greatness, and when +at last his eyes were opened, genuine pain, not malice, was the motive of even +the most bitter of his diatribes. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, we should just like to give one more passage from <i>Ecce Homo</i> +bearing upon the subject under discussion. It is particularly interesting from +an autobiographical standpoint, and will perhaps afford the best possible +conclusion to this preface. +</p> + +<p> +Nietzsche is writing about Wagner's music, and he says: "The world must indeed +be empty for him who has never been unhealthy enough for this 'infernal +voluptuousness'; it is allowable and yet almost forbidden to use a mystical +expression in this behalf. I suppose I know better than any one the prodigies +Wagner was capable of, the fifty worlds of strange raptures to which no one +save him could soar; and as I stand to-day—strong enough to convert even +the most suspicious and dangerous phenomenon to my own use and be the stronger +for it—I declare Wagner to be the great benefactor of my life. Something +will always keep our names associated in the minds of men, and that is, that we +are two who have suffered more excruciatingly—even at each other's +hands—than most men are able to suffer nowadays. And just as Wagner is +merely a misunderstanding among Germans, so am I and ever will be. You lack two +centuries of psychological and artistic discipline, my dear countrymen!... But +it will be impossible for you ever to recover the time now lost" (p. 43). +</p> + +<p class="right"> +ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="strauss"></a>DAVID STRAUSS,</h2> + +<h4>THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER.</h4> + +<h3>DAVID STRAUSS</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p> +Public opinion in Germany seems strictly to forbid any allusion to the evil and +dangeious consequences of a war, more particularly when the war in question has +been a victorious one. Those writers, therefore, command a more ready attention +who, regarding this public opinion as final, proceed to vie with each other in +their jubilant praise of the war, and of the powerful influences it has brought +to bear upon morality, culture, and art. Yet it must be confessed that a gieat +victory is a great danger. Human nature bears a triumph less easily than a +defeat; indeed, it might even be urged that it is simpler to gain a victory of +this sort than to turn it to such account that it may not ultimately proxe a +seiious rout. +</p> + +<p> +But of all evil results due to the last contest with France, the most +deplorable, peihaps, is that widespread and even universal error of public +opinion and of all who think publicly, that German culture was also victorious +in the struggle, and that it should now, therefore, be decked with garlands, as +a fit recognition of such extraordinary events and successes. This error is in +the highest degree pernicious: not because it is an error,—for there are +illusions which are both salutary and blessed,—but because it threatens +to convert our victory into a signal defeat. A defeat? —I should say +rather, into the uprooting of the "German Mind" for the benefit of the "German +Empire." +</p> + +<p> +Even supposing that the fight had been between the two cultures, the standard +for the value of the victor would still be a very relative one, and, in any +case, would certainly not justify such exaggerated triumph or +self-glorification. For, in the first place, it would be necessary to ascertain +the worth of the conquered culture. This might be very little; in which case, +even if the victory had involved the most glorious display of arms, it would +still offer no warrant for inordinate rapture. +</p> + +<p> +Even so, however, there can be no question, in our case, of the victory of +German culture; and for the simple reason, that French culture remains as +heretofore, and that we depend upon it as heretofore. It did not even help +towards the success of our arms. Severe military discipline, natural bravery +and sustaining power, the superior generalship, unity and obedience in the rank +and file—in short, factors which have nothing to do with culture, were +instrumental in making us conquer an opponent in whom the most essential of +these factors were absent. The only wonder is, that precisely what is now +called "culture" in Germany did not prove an obstacle to the military +operations which seemed vitally necessary to a great victory. Perhaps, though, +this was only owing to the fact that this "thing" which dubs itself "culture" +saw its advantage, for once, in keeping in the background. +</p> + +<p> +If however, it be permitted to grow and to spread, if it be spoilt by the +flattering and nonsensical assurance that <i>it</i> has been +victorious,—then, as I have said, it will have the power to extirpate +German mind, and, when that is done, who knows whether there will still be +anything to be made out of the surviving German body! +</p> + +<p> +Provided it were possible to direct that calm and tenacious bravery which the +German opposed to the pathetic and spontaneous fury of the Frenchman, against +the inward enemy, against the highly suspicious and, at all events, unnative +"cultivation" which, owing to a dangerous misunderstanding, is called "culture" +in Germany, then all hope of a really genuine German "culture"—the +reverse of that "cultivation"—would not be entirely lost. For the Germans +have never known any lack of clear-sighted and heroic leaders, though these, +often enough, probably, have lacked Germans. But whether it be possible to turn +German bravery into a new direction seems to me to become ever more and more +doubtful; for I realise how fully convinced every one is that such a struggle +and such bravery are no longer requisite; on the contrary, that most things are +regulated as satisactorily as they possibly can be—or, at all events, +that everything of moment has long ago been discovered and accomplished: in a +word, that the seed of culture is already sown everywhere, and is now either +shooting up its fresh green blades, or, here and there, even bursting forth +into luxuriant blossom. In this sphere, not only happiness but ecstasy reigns +supreme. I am conscious of this ecstasy and happiness, in the ineffable, +truculent assurance of German journalists and manufacturers of novels, +tragedies, poems, and histories (for it must be clear that these people belong +to one category), who seem to have conspired to improve the leisure and +ruminative hours—that is to say, "the intellectual lapses"—of the +modern man, by bewildering him with their printed paper. Since the war, all is +gladness, dignity, and self-consciousness in this merry throng. After the +startling successes of German culture, it regards itself, not only as approved +and sanctioned, but almost as sanctified. It therefore speaks with gravity, +affects to apostrophise the German People, and issues complete works, after the +manner of the classics; nor does it shrink from proclaiming in those journals +which are open to it some few of its adherents as new German classical writers +and model authors. It might be supposed that the dangers of such an <i>abuse of +success</i> would be recognised by the more thoughtful and enlightened among +cultivated Germans; or, at least, that these would feel how painful is the +comedy that is being enacted around them: for what in truth could more readily +inspire pity than the sight of a cripple strutting like a cock before a mirror, +and exchanging complacent glances with his reflection! But the "scholar" caste +willingly allow things to remain as they are, and re too much concerned with +their own affairs to busy themselves with the care of the German mind. +Moreover, the units of this caste are too thoroughly convinced that their own +scholarship is the ripest and most perfect fruit of the age—in fact, of +all ages—to see any necessity for a care of German culture in general; +since, in so far as they and the legion of their brethren are concerned, +preoccupations of this order have everywhere been, so to speak, surpassed. The +more conscientious observer, more particularly if he be a foreigner, cannot +help noticing withal that no great disparity exists between that which the +German scholar regards as his culture and that other triumphant culture of the +new German classics, save in respect of the quantum of knowledge. Everywhere, +where knowledge and not ability, where information and not art, hold the first +rank,—everywhere, therefore, where life bears testimony to the kind of +culture extant, there is now only one specific German culture—and this is +the culture that is supposed to have conquered France? +</p> + +<p> +The contention appears to be altogether too preposterous. It was solely to the +more extensive knowledge of German officers, to the superior training of their +soldiers, and to their more scientific military strategy, that all impartial +Judges, and even the French nation, in the end, ascribed the victory. Hence, if +it be intended to regard German erudition as a thing apart, in what sense can +German culture be said to have conquered? In none whatsoever; for the moral +qualities of severe discipline, of more placid obedience, have nothing in +common with culture: these were characteristic of the Macedonian army, for +instance, despite the fact that the Greek soldiers were infinitely more +cultivated. To speak of German scholarship and culture as having conquered, +therefore, can only be the outcome of a misapprehension, probably resulting +from the circumstance that every precise notion of culture has now vanished +from Germany. +</p> + +<p> +Culture is, before all things, the unity of artistic style, in every expression +of the life of a people. Abundant knowledge and learning, however, are not +essential to it, nor are they a sign of its existence; and, at a pinch, they +might coexist much more harmoniously with the very opposite of +culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a complete lack of style, or +with a riotous jumble of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous +jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and the serious problem to be solved +is: how, with all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing it; how, into +the bargain, he can rejoice with all his heart in his present "culture"? For +everything conduces to open his eyes for him—every glance he casts at his +clothes, his room, his house; every walk he takes through the streets of his +town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and to his trader in the articles +of fashion. In his social intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his +manners and movements; in the heart of our art-institutions, the pleasures of +our concerts, theatres, and museums, he ought to become apprised of the super- +and juxta-position of all imaginable styles. The German heaps up around him the +forms, colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and zones, and thereby +succeeds in producing that garish newness, as of a country fair, which his +scholars then proceed to contemplate and to define as "Modernism <i>per +se</i>"; and there he remains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this +conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture, which is, at bottom, nothing +more nor less than a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men cannot +vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy like the French, who, whatever their +worth may be, do actually possess a genuine and productive culture, and whom, +up to the present, we have systematically copied, though in the majority of +cases without skill. +</p> + +<p> +Even supposing we had really ceased copying them, it would still not mean that +we had overcome them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from our necks. +Not before we have succeeded in forcing an original German culture upon them +can there be any question of the triumph of German culture. Meanwhile, let us +not forget that in all matters of form we are, and must be, just as dependent +upon Paris now as we were before the war; for up to the present there has been +no such thing as a original German culture. +</p> + +<p> +We all ought to have become aware of this, of our own accord. Besides, one of +the few who had he right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach Publicly drew +attention to the fact. "We Germans are of yesterday," Goethe once said to +Eckermann. "True, for the last hundred years we have diligently cultivated +ourselves, but a few centuries may yet have to run their course before our +fellow-countrymen become permeated with sufficient intellectuality and higher +culture to have it said of them, <i>it is a long time since they were +barbarians</i>." +</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p> +If, however, our public and private life is so manifestly devoid of all signs +of a productive and characteristic culture; if, moreover, our great artists, +with that earnest vehemence and honesty which is peculiar to greatness admit, +and have admitted, this monstrous fact—so very humiliating to a gifted +nation; how can it still be possible for contentment to reign to such an +astonishing extent among German scholars? And since the last war this +complacent spirit has seemed ever more and morerready to break forth into +exultant cries and demonstrations of triumph. At all events, the belief seems +to be rife that we are in possession of a genuine culture, and the enormous +incongruity of this triumphant satisfaction in the face of the inferiority +which should be patent to all, seems only to be noticed by the few and the +select. For all those who think with the public mind have blindfolded their +eyes and closed their ears. The incongruity is not even acknowledged to exist. +How is this possible? What power is sufficiently influential to deny this +existence? What species of men must have attained to supremacy in Germany that +feelings which are so strong and simple should he denied or prevented from +obtaining expression? This power, this species of men, I will name—they +are the <i>Philistines of Culture</i>. +</p> + +<p> +As every one knows, the word "Philistine" is borrowed from the vernacular of +student-life, and, in its widest and most popular sense, it signifies the +reverse of a son of the Muses, of an artist, and of the genuine man of culture. +The Philistine of culture, however, the study of whose type and the hearing of +whose confessions (when he makes them) have now become tiresome duties, +distinguishes himself from the general notion of the order "Philistine" by +means of a superstition: he fancies that he is himself a son of the Muses and a +man of culture. This incomprehensible error clearly shows that he does not even +know the difference between a Philistine and his opposite. We must not be +surprised, therefore, if we find him, for the most part, solemnly protesting +that he is no Philistine. Owing to this lack of self-knowledge, he is convinced +that his "culture" is the consummate manifestation of real German culture; and, +since he everywhere meets with scholars of his own type, since all public +institutions, whether schools, universities, or academies, are so organised as +to be in complete harmony with his education and needs, wherever he goes he +bears with him the triumphant feeling that he is the worthy champion of +prevailing German culture, and he frames his pretensions and claims +accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +If, however, real culture takes unity of style for granted (and even an +inferior and degenerate culture cannot be imagined in which a certain +coalescence of the profusion of forms has not taken place), it is just possible +that the confusion underlying the Culture-Philistine's error may arise from the +fact that, since he comes into contact everywhere with creatures cast in the +same mould as himself, he concludes that this uniformity among all "scholars" +must point to a certain uniformity in German education—hence to culture. +All round him, he sees only needs and views similar to his own; wherever he +goes, he finds himself embraced by a ring of tacit conventions concerning +almost everything, but more especially matters of religion and art. This +imposing sameness, this <i>tutti unisono</i> which, though it responds to no +word of command, is yet ever ready to burst forth, cozens him into the belief +that here a culture must be established and flourishing. But Philistinism, +despite its systematic organisation and power, does not constitute a culture by +virtue of its system alone; it does not even constitute an inferior culture, +but invariably the reverse—namely, firmly established barbarity. For the +uniformity of character which is so apparent in the German scholars of to-day +is only the result of a conscious or unconscious exclusion and negation of all +the artistically productive forms and requirements of a genuine style. The mind +of the cultured Philistine must have become sadly unhinged; for precisely what +culture repudiates he regards as culture itself; and, since he proceeds +logically, he succeeds in creating a connected group of these +repudiations—a system of non-culture, to which one might at a pinch grant +a certain "unity of style," provided of course it were Ot nonsense to attribute +style to barbarity. If he have to choose between a stylish act and its +opposite, he will invariably adopt the latter, and, since this rule holds good +throughout, every one of his acts bears the same negative stamp. Now, it is by +means of this stamp that he is able to identify the character of the "German +culture," which is his own patent; and all things that do not bear it are so +many enemies and obstacles drawn up against him. In the presence of these +arrayed forces the Culture-Philistine either does no more than ward off the +blows, or else he denies, holds his tongue, stops his ears, and refuses to face +facts. He is a negative creature—even in his hatred and animosity. +Nobody, however, is more disliked by him than the man who regards him as a +Philistine, and tells him what he is—namely, the barrier in the way of +all powerful men and creators, the labyrinth for all who doubt and go astray, +the swamp for all the weak and the weary, the fetters of those who would run +towards lofty goals, the poisonous mist that chokes all germinating hopes, the +scorching sand to all those German thinkers who seek for, and thirst after, a +new life. For the mind of Germany is seeking; and ye hate it because it is +seeking, and because it will not accept your word, when ye declare that ye have +found what it is seeking. How could it have been possible for a type like that +of the Culture-Philistine to develop? and even granting its development, how +was it able to rise to the powerful Position of supreme judge concerning all +questions of German culture? How could this have been possible, seeing that a +whole procession of grand and heroic figures has already filed past us, whose +every movement, the expression of whose every feature, whose questioning voice +and burning eye betrayed the one fact, <i>that they were seekers</i>, and that +they sought that which the Culture-Philistine had long fancied he had +found—to wit, a genuine original German culture? Is there a +soil—thus they seemed to ask—a soil that is pure enough, +unhandselled enough, of sufficient virgin sanctity, to allow the mind of +Germany to build its house upon it? Questioning thus, they wandered through the +wilderness, and the woods of wretched ages and narrow conditions, and as +seekers they disappeared from our vision; one of them, at an advanced age, was +even able to say, in the name of all: "For half a century my life has been hard +and bitter enough; I have allowed myself no rest, but have ever striven, sought +and done, to the best and to the utmost of my ability." +</p> + +<p> +What does our Culture-Philistinism say of these seekers? It regards them simply +as discoverers, and seems to forget that they themselves only claimed to be +seekers. We have our culture, say her sons; for have we not our "classics"? Not +only is the foundation there, but the building already stands upon it—we +ourselves constitute that building. And, so saying, the Philistine raises his +hand to his brow. +</p> + +<p> +But, in order to be able thus to misjudge, and thus to grant left-handed +veneration to our classics, people must have ceased to know them. This, +generally speaking, is precisely what has happened. For, otherwise, one ought +to know that there is only one way of honouring them, and that is to continue +seeking with the same spirit and with the same courage, and not to weary of the +search. But to foist the doubtful title of "classics" upon them, and to "edify" +oneself from time to time by reading their works, means to yield to those +feeble and selfish emotions which all the paying public may purchase at +concert-halls and theatres. Even the raising of monuments to their memory, and +the christening of feasts and societies with their names—all these things +are but so many ringing cash payments by means of which the Culture-Philistine +discharges his indebtedness to them, so that in all other respects he may be +rid of them, and, above all, not bound to follow in their wake and prosecute +his search further. For henceforth inquiry is to cease: that is the Philistine +watchword. +</p> + +<p> +This watchword once had some meaning. In Germany, during the first decade of +the nineteenth century, for instance, when the heyday and confusion of seeking, +experimenting, destroying, promising, surmising, and hoping was sweeping in +currents and cross-currents over the land, the thinking middle-classes were +right in their concern for their own security. It was then quite right of them +to dismiss from their minds with a shrug of their shoulders the <i>omnium +gatherum</i> of fantastic and language-maiming philosophies, and of rabid +special-pleading historical studies, the carnival of all gods and myths, and +the poetical affectations and fooleries which a drunken spirit may be +responsible for. In this respect they were quite right; for the Philistine has +not even the privilege of licence. With the cunning proper to base natures, +however, he availed himself of the opportunity, in order to throw suspicion +even upon the seeking spirit, and to invite people to join in the more +comfortable pastime of finding. His eye opened to the joy of Philistinism; he +saved himself from wild experimenting by clinging to the idyllic, and opposed +the restless creative spirit that animates the artist, by means of a certain +smug ease—the ease of self-conscious narrowness, tranquillity, and +self-sufficiency. His tapering finger pointed, without any affectation of +modesty, to all the hidden and intimate incidents of his life, to the many +touching and ingenuous joys which sprang into existence in the wretched depths +of his uncultivated existence, and which modestly blossomed forth on the +bog-land of Philistinism. +</p> + +<p> +There were, naturally, a few gifted narrators who, with a nice touch, drew +vivid pictures of the happiness, the prosaic simplicity, the bucolic +robustness, and all the well-being which floods the quarters of children, +scholars, and peasants. With picture-books of this class in their hands, these +smug ones now once and for all sought to escape from the yoke of these dubious +classics and the command which they contained—to seek further and to +find. They only started the notion of an epigone-age in order to secure peace +for themselves, and to be able to reject all the efforts of disturbing +innovators summarily as the work of epigones. With the view of ensuring their +own tranquillity, these smug ones even appropriated history, and sought to +transform all sciences that threatened to disturb their wretched ease into +branches of history—more particularly philosophy and classical philology. +Through historical consciousness, they saved themselves from enthusiasm; for, +in opposition to Goethe, it was maintained that history would no longer kindle +enthusiasm. No, in their desire to acquire an historical grasp of everything, +stultification became the sole aim of these philosophical admirers of "<i>nil +admirari</i>." While professing to hate every form of fanaticism and +intolerance, what they really hated, at bottom, was the dominating genius and +the tyranny of the real claims of culture. They therefore concentrated and +utilised all their forces in those quarters where a fresh and vigorous movement +was to be expected, and then paralysed, stupefied, and tore it to shreds. In +this way, a philosophy which veiled the Philistine confessions of its founder +beneath neat twists and flourishes of language proceeded further to discover a +formula for the canonisation of the commonplace. It expatiated upon the +rationalism of all reality, and thus ingratiated itself with the +Culture-Philistine, who also loves neat twists and flourishes, and who, above +all, considers himself real, and regards his reality as the standard of reason +for the world. From this time forward he began to allow every one, and even +himself, to reflect, to investigate, to astheticise, and, more particularly, to +make poetry, rnusic, and even pictures—not to mention systems philosophy; +provided, of course, that everything were done according to the old pattern, +and that no assault were made upon the "reasonable" and the "real"—that +is to say, upon the Philistine. The latter really does not at all mind giving +himself up, from time to time, to the delightful and daring transgressions of +art or of sceptical historical studies, and he does not underestimate the charm +of such recreations and entertainments; but he strictly separates "the +earnestness of life" (under which term he understands his calling, his +business, and his wife and child) from such trivialities, and among the latter +he includes all things which have any relation to culture. Therefore, woe to +the art that takes itself seriously, that has a notion of what it may exact, +and that dares to endanger his income, his business, and his habits! Upon such +an art he turns his back, as though it were something dissolute; and, affecting +the attitude of a. guardian of chastity, he cautions every unprotected virtue +on no account to look. +</p> + +<p> +Being such an adept at cautioning people, he is always grateful to any artist +who heeds him and listens to caution. He then assures his protege that things +are to be made more easy for him; that, as a kindred spirit, he will no longer +be expected to make sublime masterpieces, but that his work must be one of two +kinds—either the imitation of reality to the point of simian mimicry, in +idylls or gentle and humorous satires, or the free copying of the best-known +and most famous classical works, albeit with shamefast concessions to the taste +of the age. For, although he may only be able to appreciate slavish copying or +accurate portraiture of the present, still he knows that the latter will but +glorify him, and increase the well-being of "reality"; while the former, far +from doing him any harm, rather helps to establish his reputation as a +classical judge of taste, and is not otherwise troublesome; for he has, once +and for all, come to terms with the classics. Finally, he discovers the general +and effective formula "Health" for his habits, methods of observation, +judgments, and the objects of his patronage; while he dismisses the importunate +disturber of the peace with the epithets "hysterical" and "morbid." It is thus +that David Strauss—a genuine example of the <i>satisfait</i> in regard to +our scholastic institutions, and a typical Philistine—it is thus that he +speaks of "the philosophy of Schopenhauer" as being "thoroughly intellectual, +yet often unhealthy and unprofitable." It is indeed a deplorable fact that +intellect should show such a decided preference for the "unhealthy" and the +"unprofitable"; and even the Philistine, if he be true to himself, will admit +that, in regard to the philosophies which men of his stamp produce, he is +conscious of a frequent lack of intellectuality, although of course they are +always thoroughly healthy and profitable. +</p> + +<p> +Now and again, the Philistines, provided they are by themselves, indulge in a +bottle of wine, and then they grow reminiscent, and speak of the great deeds of +the war, honestly and ingenuously. On such occasions it often happens that a +great deal comes to light which would otherwise have been most stead-fastly +concealed, and one of them may even be heard to blurt out the most precious +secrets of the whole brotherhood. Indeed, a lapse of this sort occurred but a +short while ago, to a well-known aesthete of the Hegelian school of reasoning. +It must, however, be admitted that the provocation thereto was of an unusual +character. A company of Philistines were feasting together, in celebration of +the memory of a genuine anti-Philistine—one who, moreover, had been, in +the strictest sense of the words, wrecked by Philistinism. This man was +Holderlin, and the afore-mentioned aesthete was therefore justified, under the +circumstances, in speaking of the tragic souls who had foundered on +"reality"—reality being understood, here, to mean Philistine reason. But +the "reality" is now different, and it might well be asked whether Holderlin +would be able to find his way at all in the present great age. "I doubt," says +Dr. Vischer, "whether his delicate soul could have borne all the roughness +which is inseparable from war, and whether it had survived the amount of +perversity which, since the war, we now see flourishing in every quarter. +Perhaps he would have succumbed to despair. His was one of the unarmed souls; +he was the Werther of Greece, a hopeless lover; his life was full of softness +and yearning, but there was strength and substance in his will, and in his +style, greatness, riches and life; here and there it is even reminiscent of +AEschylus. His spirit, however, lacked hardness. He lacked the weapon humour; +he could not grant that one may be a Philistine and still be no barbarian." Not +the sugary condolence of the post-prandial speaker, but this last sentence +concerns us. Yes, it is admitted that one is a Philistine; but, a +barbarian?—No, not at any price! Unfortunately, poor Holderlin could not +make such flne distinctions. If one reads the reverse of civilisation, or +perhaps sea-pirating, or cannibalism, into the word "barbarian," then the +distinction is justifiable enough. But what the aesthete obviously wishes to +prove to us is, that we may be Philistines and at the same time men of culture. +Therein lies the humour which poor Holderlin lacked and the need of which +ultimately wrecked him.<b><a href="#footnote2">*</a></b> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="footnote2"></a> +[Footnote <b>*</b> : Nietzsche's allusion to Holderlin here is full of tragic +significance; for, like Holderlin, he too was ultimately wrecked and driven +insane by the Philistinism of his age. —Translator's note.] +</p> + +<p> +On this occasion a second admission was made by the speaker: "It is not always +strength of will, but weakness, which makes us superior to those tragic souls +which are so passionately responsive to the attractions of beauty," or words to +this effect. And this was said in the name of the assembled "We"; that is to +say, the "superiors," the "superiors through weakness." Let us content +ourselves with these admissions. We are now in possession of information +concerning two matters from one of the initiated: first, that these "We" stand +beyond the passion for beauty; secondly, that their position was reached by +means of weakness. In less confidential moments, however, it was just this +weakness which masqueraded in the guise of a much more beautiful name: it was +the famous "healthiness" of the Culture-Philistine. In view of this very recent +restatement of the case, however, it would be as well not to speak of them any +longer as the "healthy ones," but as the "weakly," or, still better, as the +"feeble." Oh, if only these feeble ones were not in power! How is it that they +concern themselves at all about what we call them! They are the rulers, and he +is a poor ruler who cannot endure to be called by a nickname. Yes, if one only +have power, one soon learns to poke fun—even at oneself. It cannot matter +so very much, therefore, even if one do give oneself away; for what could not +the purple mantle of triumph conceal? The strength of the Culture-Philistine +steps into the broad light of day when he acknowledges his weakness; and the +more he acknowledges it— the more cynically he acknowledges it—the +more completely he betrays his consciousness of his own importance and +superiority. We are living in a period of cynical Philistine confessions. Just +as Friedrich Vischer gave us his in a word, so has David Strauss handed us his +in a book; and both that word and that book are cynical. +</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p> +Concerning Culture-Philistinism, David Strauss makes a double confession, by +word and by deed; that is to say, by the word of the confessor, and the act of +the writer. His book entitled <i>The Old Faith and the New</i> is, first in +regard to its contents, and secondly in regard to its being a book and a +literary production, an uninterrupted confession; while, in the very fact that +he allows himself to write confessions at all about his faith, there already +lies a confession. Presumably, every one seems to have the right to compile an +autobiography after his fortieth year; for the humblest amongst us may have +experienced things, and may have seen them at such close quarters, that the +recording of them may prove of use and value to the thinker. But to write a +confession of one's faith cannot but be regarded as a thousand times more +pretentious, since it takes for granted that the writer attaches worth, not +only to the experiences and investigations of his life, but also to his +beliefs. Now, what the nice thinker will require to know, above all else, is +the kind of faith which happens to be compatible with natures of the Straussian +order, and what it is they have "half dreamily conjured up" (p. 10) concerning +matters of which those alone have the right to speak who are acquainted with +them at first hand. Whoever would have desired to possess the confessions, say, +of a Ranke or a Mommsen? And these men were scholars and historians of a very +different stamp from David Strauss. If, however, they had ever ventured to +interest us in their faith instead of in their scientific investigations, we +should have felt that they were overstepping their limits in a most irritating +fashion. Yet Strauss does this when he discusses his faith. Nobody wants to +know anything about it, save, perhaps, a few bigoted opponents of the +Straussian doctrines, who, suspecting, as they do, a substratum of satanic +principles beneath these doctrines, hope that he may compromise his learned +utterances by revealing the nature of those principles. These clumsy creatures +may, perhaps, have found what they sought in the last book; but we, who had no +occasion to suspect a satanic substratum, discovered nothing of the sort, and +would have felt rather pleased than not had we been able to discern even a dash +of the diabolical in any part of the volume. But surely no evil spirit could +speak as Strauss speaks of his new faith. In fact, spirit in general seems to +be altogether foreign to the book— more particularly the spirit of +genius. Only those whom Strauss designates as his "We," speak as he does, and +then, when they expatiate upon their faith to us, they bore us even more than +when they relate their dreams; be they "scholars, artists, military men, civil +employes, merchants, or landed proprietors; come they in their thousands, and +not the worst people in the land either!" If they do not wish to remain the +peaceful ones in town or county, but threaten to wax noisy, then let not the +din of their <i>unisono</i> deceive us concerning the poverty and vulgarity of +the melody they sing. How can it dispose us more favourably towards a +profession of faith to hear that it is approved by a crowd, when it is of such +an order that if any individual of that crowd attempted to make it known to us, +we should not only fail to hear him out, but should interrupt him with a yawn? +If thou sharest such a belief, we should say unto him, in Heaven's name, keep +it to thyself! Maybe, in the past, some few harmless types looked for the +thinker in David Strauss; now they have discovered the "believer" in him, and +are disappointed. Had he kept silent, he would have remained, for these, at +least, the philosopher; whereas, now, no one regards him as such. He no longer +craved the honours of the thinker, however; all he wanted to be was a new +believer, and he is proud of his new belief. In making a written declaration of +it, he fancied he was writing the catechism of "modern thought," and building +the "broad highway of the world's future." Indeed, our Philistines have ceased +to be faint-hearted and bashful, and have acquired almost cynical assurance. +There was a time, long, long ago, when the Philistine was only tolerated as +something that did not speak, and about which no one spoke; then a period +ensued during which his roughness was smoothed, during which he was found +amusing, and people talked about him. Under this treatment he gradually became +a prig, rejoiced with all his heart over his rough places and his wrongheaded +and candid singularities, and began to talk, on his own account, after the +style of Riehl's music for the home. +</p> + +<p> +"But what do I see? Is it a shadow? Is it reality? How long and broad my poodle +grows!" +</p> + +<p> +For now he is already rolling like a hippopotamus along "the broad highway of +the world's future," and his growling and barking have become transformed into +the proud incantations of a religious founder. And is it your own sweet wish, +Great Master, to found the religion of the future? "The times seem to us not +yet ripe (p. 7). It does not occur to us to wish to destroy a church." But why +not, Great Master? One but needs the ability. Besides, to speak quite openly in +the latter, you yourself are convinced that you Possess this ability. Look at +the last page of your book. There you actually state, forsooth, that your new +way "alone is the future highway of the world, which now only requires partial +completion, and especially general use, in order also to become easy and +pleasant." +</p> + +<p> +Make no further denials, then. The religious founder is unmasked, the +convenient and agreeable highway leading to the Straussian Paradise is built. +It is only the coach in which you wish to convey us that does not altogether +satisfy you, unpretentious man that you are! You tell us in your concluding +remarks: "Nor will I pretend that the coach to which my esteemed readers have +been obliged to trust themselves with me fulfils every requirement,... all +through one is much jolted" (p. 438). Ah! you are casting about for a +compliment, you gallant old religious founder! But let us be straightforward +with you. If your reader so regulates the perusal of the 368 pages of your +religious catechism as to read only one page a day—that is to say, if he +take it in the smallest possible doses-then, perhaps, we should be able to +believe that he might suffer some evil effect from the book—if only as +the outcome of his vexation when the results he expected fail to make +themselves felt. Gulped down more heartily, however, and as much as possible +being taken at each draught, according to the prescription to be recommended in +the case of all modern books, the drink can work no mischief; and, after taking +it, the reader will not necessarily be either out of sorts or out of temper, +but rather merry and well-disposed, as though nothing had happened; as though +no religion had been assailed, no world's highway been built, and no profession +of faith been made. And I do indeed call this a result! The doctor, the drug, +and the disease—everything forgotten! And the joyous laughter! The +continual provocation to hilarity! You are to be envied, Sir; for you have +founded the most attractive of all religions —one whose followers do +honour to its founder by laughing at him. +</p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p> +The Philistine as founder of the religion of the future—that is the new +belief in its most emphatic form of expression. The Philistine becomes a +dreamer—that is the unheard-of occurrence which distinguishes the German +nation of to-day. But for the present, in any case, let us maintain an attitude +of caution towards this fantastic exaltation. For does not David Strauss +himself advise us to exercise such caution, in the following profound passage, +the general tone of which leads us to think of the Founder of Christianity +rather than of our particular author? (p. 92): "We know there have been noble +enthusiasts—enthusiasts of genius; the influence of an enthusiast can +rouse, exalt, and produce prolonged historic effects; but we do not wish to +choose him as the guide of our life. He will be sure to mislead us, if we do +not subject his influence to the control of reason." But we know something +more: we know that there are enthusiasts who are not intellectual, who do not +rouse or exalt, and who, nevertheless, not only expect to be the guides of our +lives, but, as such, to exercise a very lasting historical influence into the +bargain, and to rule the future;—all the more reason why we should place +their influence under the control of reason. Lichtenberg even said: "There are +enthusiasts quite devoid of ability, and these are really dangerous people." In +the first place, as regards the above-mentioned control of reason, we should +like to have candid answers to the three following questions: First, how does +the new believer picture his heaven? Secondly, how far does the courage lent +him by the new faith extend? And, thirdly, how does he write his books? Strauss +the Confessor must answer the first and second questions; Strauss the Writer +must answer the third. +</p> + +<p> +The heaven of the new believer must, perforce, be a heaven upon earth; for the +Christian "prospect of an immortal life in heaven," together with the other +consolations, "must irretrievably vanish" for him who has but "one foot" on the +Straussian platform. The way in which a religion represents its heaven is +significant, and if it be true that Christianity knows no other heavenly +occupations than singing and making music, the prospect of the Philistine, <i>à +la</i> Strauss, is truly not a very comforting one. In the book of confessions, +however, there is a page which treats of Paradise (p. 342). Happiest of +Philistines, unroll this parchment scroll before anything else, and the whole +of heaven will seem to clamber down to thee! "We would but indicate how we act, +how we have acted these many years. Besides our profession—for we are +members of the most various professions, and by no means exclusively consist of +scholars or artists, but of military men and civil employes, of merchants and +landed proprietors;... and again, as I have said already, there are not a few +of us, but many thousands, and not the worst people in the +country;—besides our profession, then, I say, we are eagerly accessible +to all the higher interests of humanity; we have taken a vivid interest, during +late years, and each after his manner has participated in the great national +war, and the reconstruction of the German State; and we have been profoundly +exalted by the turn events have taken, as unexpected as glorious, for our much +tried nation. To the end of forming just conclusions in these things, we study +history, which has now been made easy, even to the unlearned, by a series of +attractively and popularly written works; at the same time, we endeavour to +enlarge our knowledge of the natural sciences, where also there is no lack of +sources of information; and lastly, in the writings of our great poets, in the +performances of our great musicians, we find a stimulus for the intellect and +heart, for wit and imagination, which leaves nothing to be desired. Thus we +live, and hold on our way in joy." +</p> + +<p> +"Here is our man!" cries the Philistine exultingly, who reads this: "for this +is exactly how we live; it is indeed our daily life."<b><a +href="#footnote3">*</a></b> And how perfectly he understands the euphemism! +When, for example, he refers to the historical studies by means of which we +help ourselves in forming just conclusions regarding the political situation, +what can he be thinking of, if it be not our newspaper-reading? When he speaks +of the active part we take in the reconstruction of the German State, he surely +has only our daily visits to the beer-garden in his mind; and is not a walk in +the Zoological Gardens implied by 'the sources of information through which we +endeavour to enlarge our knowledge of the natural sciences'? Finally, the +theatres and concert-halls are referred to as places from which we take home 'a +stimulus for wit and imagination which leaves nothing to be +desired.'—With what dignity and wit he describes even the most suspicious +of our doings! Here indeed is our man; for his heaven is our heaven!" +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="footnote3"></a> +[Footnote <b>*</b> : This alludes to a German student-song.] +</p> + +<p> +Thus cries the Philistine; and if we are not quite so satisfied as he, it is +merely owing to the fact that we wanted to know more. Scaliger used to say: +"What does it matter to us whether Montaigne drank red or white wine?" But, in +this more important case, how greatly ought we to value definite particulars of +this sort! If we could but learn how many pipes the Philistine smokes daily, +according to the prescriptions of the new faith, and whether it is the +<i>Spener</i> or the <i>National Gazette</i> that appeals to him over his +coffee! But our curiosity is not satisfied. With regard to one point only do we +receive more exhaustive information, and fortunately this point relates to the +heaven in heaven—the private little art-rooms which will be consecrated +to the use of great poets and musicians, and to which the Philistine will go to +edify himself; in which, moreover, according to his own showing, he will even +get "all his stains removed and wiped away" (p. 433); so that we are led to +regard these private little art-rooms as a kind of bath-rooms. "But this is +only effected for some fleeting moments; it happens and counts only in the +realms of phantasy; as soon as we return to rude reality, and the cramping +confines of actual life, we are again on all sides assailed by the old +cares,"—thus our Master sighs. Let us, however, avail ourselves of the +fleeting moments during which we remain in those little rooms; there is just +sufficient time to get a glimpse of the apotheosis of the Philistine— +that is to say, the Philistine whose stains have been removed and wiped away, +and who is now an absolutely pure sample of his type. In truth, the opportunity +we have here may prove instructive: let no one who happens to have fallen a +victim to the confession-book lay it aside before having read the two +appendices, "Of our Great Poets" and "Of our Great Musicians." Here the rainbow +of the new brotherhood is set, and he who can find no pleasure in it "for such +an one there is no help," as Strauss says on another occasion; and, as he might +well say here, "he is not yet ripe for our point of view." For are we not in +the heaven of heavens? The enthusiastic explorer undertakes to lead us about, +and begs us to excuse him if, in the excess of his joy at all the beauties to +be seen, he should by any chance be tempted to talk too much. "If I should, +perhaps, become more garrulous than may seem warranted in this place, let the +reader be indulgent to me; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth +speaketh. Let him only be assured that what he is now about to read does not +consist of older materials, which I take the opportunity of inserting here, but +that these remarks have been written for their present place and purpose" (pp. +345-46). This confession surprises us somewhat for the moment. What can it +matter to us whether or not the little chapters were freshly written? As if it +were a matter of writing! Between ourselves, I should have been glad if they +had been written a quarter of a century earlier; then, at least, I should have +understood why the thoughts seem to be so bleached, and why they are so +redolent of resuscitated antiquities. But that a thing should have been written +in 1872 and already smell of decay in 1872 strikes me as suspicious. Let us +imagine some one's falling asleep while reading these chapters—what would +he most probably dream about? A friend answered this question for me, because +he happened to have had the experience himself. He dreamt of a wax-work show. +The classical writers stood there, elegantly represented in wax and beads. +Their arms and eyes moved, and a screw inside them creaked an accompaniment to +their movements. He saw something gruesome among them—a misshapen figure, +decked with tapes and jaundiced paper, out of whose mouth a ticket hung, on +which "Lessing" was written. My friend went close up to it and learned the +worst: it was the Homeric Chimera; in front it was Strauss, behind it was +Gervinus, and in the middle Chimera. The <i>tout-ensemble</i> was Lessing. This +discovery caused him to shriek with terror: he waked, and read no more. In +sooth, Great Master, why have you written such fusty little chapters? +</p> + +<p> +We do, indeed, learn something new from them; for instance, that Gervinus made +it known to the world how and why Goethe was no dramatic genius; that, in the +second part of Faust, he had only produced a world of phantoms and of symbols; +that Wallenstein is a Macbeth as well as a Hamlet; that the Straussian reader +extracts the short stories out of the <i>Wanderjahre</i> "much as naughty +children pick the raisins and almonds out of a tough plum-cake"; that no +complete effect can be produced on the stage without the forcible element, and +that Schiller emerged from Kant as from a cold-water cure. All this is +certainly new and striking; but, even so, it does not strike us with wonder, +and so sure as it is new, it will never grow old, for it never was young; it +was senile at birth. What extraordinary ideas seem to occur to these Blessed +Ones, after the New Style, in their aesthetic heaven! And why can they not +manage to forget a few of them, more particularly when they are of that +unaesthetic, earthly, and ephemeral order to which the scholarly thoughts of +Gervinus belong, and when they so obviously bear the stamp of puerility? But it +almost seems as though the modest greatness of a Strauss and the vain +insignificance of a Gervinus were only too well able to harmonise: then long +live all those Blessed Ones! may we, the rejected, also live long, if this +unchallenged judge of art continues any longer to teach his borrowed +enthusiasm, and the gallop of that hired steed of which the honest Grillparzer +speaks with such delightful clearness, until the whole of heaven rings beneath +the hoof of that galumphing enthusiasm. Then, at least, things will be livelier +and noisier than they are at the present moment, in which the carpet-slippered +rapture of our heavenly leader and the lukewarm eloquence of his lips only +succeed in the end in making us sick and tired. I should like to know how a +Hallelujah sung by Strauss would sound: I believe one would have to listen very +carefully, lest it should seem no more than a courteous apology or a lisped +compliment. Apropos of this, I might adduce an instructive and somewhat +forbidding example. Strauss strongly resented the action of one of his +opponents who happened to refer to his reverence for Lessing. The unfortunate +man had misunderstood;—true, Strauss did declare that one must be of a +very obtuse mind not to recognise that the simple words of paragraph 86 come +from the writer's heart. Now, I do not question this warmth in the very least; +on the contrary, the fact that Strauss fosters these feelings towards Lessing +has always excited my suspicion; I find the same warmth for Lessing raised +almost to heat in Gervinus—yea, on the whole, no great German writer is +so popular among little German writers as Lessing is; but for all that, they +deserve no thanks for their predilection; for what is it, in sooth, that they +praise in Lessing? At one moment it is his catholicity— the fact that he +was critic and poet, archaeologist and philosopher, dramatist and theologian. +Anon, "it is the unity in him of the writer and the man, of the head and the +heart." The last quality, as a rule, is just as characteristic of the great +writer as of the little one; as a rule, a narrow head agrees only too fatally +with a narrow heart. And as to the catholicity; this is no distinction, more +especially when, as in Lessing's case, it was a dire necessity. What astonishes +one in regard to Lessing-enthusiasts is rather that they have no conception of +the devouring necessity which drove him on through life and to this +catholicity; no feeling for the fact that such a man is too prone to consume +himself rapidly, like a flame; nor any indignation at the thought that the +vulgar narrowness and pusillanimity of his whole environment, especially of his +learned contemporaries, so saddened, tormented, and stifled the tender and +ardent creature that he was, that the very universality for which he is praised +should give rise to feelings of the deepest compassion. "Have pity on the +exceptional man!" Goethe cries to us; "for it was his lot to live in such a +wretched age that his life was one long polemical effort." How can ye, my +worthy Philistines, think of Lessing without shame? He who was ruined precisely +on account of your stupidity, while struggling with your ludicrous fetiches and +idols, with the defects of your theatres, scholars, and theologists, without +once daring to attempt that eternal flight for which he had been born. And what +are your feelings when ye think of Winckelman, who, in order to turn his eyes +from your grotesque puerilities, went begging to the Jesuits for help, and +whose ignominious conversion dishonours not him, but you? Dare ye mention +Schiller's name without blushing? Look at his portrait. See the flashing eyes +that glance contemptuously over your heads, the deadly red cheek—do these +things mean nothing to you? In him ye had such a magnificent and divine toy +that ye shattered it. Suppose, for a moment, it had been possible to deprive +this harassed and hunted life of Goethe's friendship, ye would then have been +reponsible for its still earlier end. Ye have had no finger in any one of the +life-works of your great geniuses, and yet ye would make a dogma to the effect +that no one is to be helped in the future. But for every one of them, ye were +"the resistance of the obtuse world," which Goethe calls by its name in his +epilogue to the Bell; for all of them ye were the grumbling imbeciles, or the +envious bigots, or the malicious egoists: in spite of you each of them created +his works, against you each directed his attacks, and thanks to you each +prematurely sank, while his work was still unfinished, broken and bewildered by +the stress of the battle. And now ye presume that ye are going to be permitted, +<i>tamquam re bene gesta</i>, to praise such men! and with words which leave no +one in any doubt as to whom ye have in your minds when ye utter your encomiums, +which therefore "spring forth with such hearty warmth" that one must be blind +not to see to whom ye are really bowing. Even Goethe in his day had to cry: +"Upon my honour, we are in need of a Lessing, and woe unto all vain masters and +to the whole aesthetic kingdom of heaven, when the young tiger, whose restless +strength will be visible in his every distended muscle and his every glance, +shall sally forth to seek his prey!" +</p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p> +How clever it was of my friend to read no further, once he had been enlightened +(thanks to that chimerical vision) concerning the Straussian Lessing and +Strauss himself. We, however, read on further, and even craved admission of the +Doorkeeper of the New Faith to the sanctum of music. The Master threw the door +open for us, accompanied us, and began quoting certain names, until, at last, +overcome with mistrust, we stood still and looked at him. Was it possible that +we were the victims of the same hallucination as that to which our friend had +been subjected in his dream? The musicians to whom Strauss referred seemed to +us to be wrongly designated as long as he spoke about them, and we began to +think that the talk must certainly be about somebody else, even admitting that +it did not relate to incongruous phantoms. When, for instance, he mentioned +Haydn with that same warmth which made us so suspicious when he praised +Lessing, and when he posed as the epopt and priest of a mysterious Haydn cult; +when, in a discussion upon quartette-music, if you please, he even likened +Haydn to a "good unpretending soup" and Beethoven to "sweetmeats" (p. 432); +then, to our minds, one thing, and one thing alone, became +certain—namely, that his Sweetmeat-Beethoven is not our Beethoven, and +his Soup-Haydn is not our Haydn. The Master was moreover of the opinion that +our orchestra is too good to perform Haydn, and that only the most +unpretentious amateurs can do justice to that music—a further proof that +he was referring to some other artist and some other work, possibly to Riehl's +music for the home. +</p> + +<p> +But whoever can this Sweetmeat-Beethoven of Strauss's be? He is said to have +composed nine symphonies, of which the Pastoral is "the least remarkable"; we +are told that "each time in composing the third, he seemed impelled to exceed +his bounds, and depart on an adventurous quest," from which we might infer that +we are here concerned with a sort of double monster, half horse and half +cavalier. With regard to a certain <i>Eroica</i>, this Centaur is very hard +pressed, because he did not succeed in making it clear "whether it is a +question of a conflict on the open field or in the deep heart of man." In the +Pastoral there is said to be "a furiously raging storm," for which it is +"almost too insignificant" to interrupt a dance of country-folk, and which, +owing to "its arbitrary connection with a trivial motive," as Strauss so +adroitly and correctly puts it, renders this symphony "the least remarkable." A +more drastic expression appears to have occurred to the Master; but he prefers +to speak here, as he says, "with becoming modesty." But no, for once our Master +is wrong; in this case he is really a little too modest. Who, indeed, will +enlighten us concerning this Sweetmeat-Beethoven, if not Strauss +himself—the only person who seems to know anything about him? But, +immediately below, a strong judgment is uttered with becoming non-modesty, and +precisely in regard to the Ninth Symphony. It is said, for instance, that this +symphony "is naturally the favourite of a prevalent taste, which in art, and +music especially, mistakes the grotesque for the genial, and the formless for +the sublime" (p. 428). It is true that a critic as severe as Gervinus was gave +this work a hearty welcome, because it happened to confirm one of his +doctrines; but Strauss is "far from going to these problematic productions" in +search of the merits of his Beethoven. "It is a pity," cries our Master, with a +convulsive sigh, "that one is compelled, by such reservations, to mar one's +enjoyment of Beethoven, as well as the admiration gladly accorded to him." For +our Master is a favourite of the Graces, and these have informed him that they +only accompanied Beethoven part of the way, and that he then lost sight of +them. "This is a defect," he cries, "but can you believe that it may also +appear as an advantage?" "He who is painfully and breathlessly rolling the +musical idea along will seem to be moving the weightier one, and thus appear to +be the stronger" (pp. 423-24). This is a confession, and not necessarily one +concerning Beethoven alone, but concerning "the classical prose-writer" +himself. He, the celebrated author, is not abandoned by the Graces. From the +play of airy jests—that is to say, Straussian jests— to the heights +of solemn earnestness—that is to say, Straussian earnestness—they +remain stolidly at his elbow. He, the classical prose-writer, slides his burden +along playfully and with a light heart, whereas Beethoven rolls his painfully +and breathlessly. He seems merely to dandle his load; this is indeed an +advantage. But would anybody believe that it might equally be a sign of +something wanting? In any case, only those could believe this who mistake the +grotesque for the genial, and the formless for the sublime—is not that +so, you dandling favourite of the Graces? We envy no one the edifying moments +he may have, either in the stillness of his little private room or in a new +heaven specially fitted out for him; but of all possible pleasures of this +order, that of Strauss's is surely one of the most wonderful, for he is even +edified by a little holocaust. He calmly throws the sublimest works of the +German nation into the flames, in order to cense his idols with their smoke. +Suppose, for a moment, that by some accident, the Eroica, the Pastoral, and the +Ninth Symphony had fallen into the hands of our priest of the Graces, and that +it had been in his power to suppress such problematic productions, in order to +keep the image of the Master pure, who doubts but what he would have burned +them? And it is precisely in this way that the Strausses of our time demean +themselves: they only wish to know so much of an artist as is compatible with +the service of their rooms; they know only the extremes— censing or +burning. To all this they are heartily welcome; the one surprising feature of +the whole case is that public opinion, in matters artistic, should be so +feeble, vacillating, and corruptible as contentedly to allow these exhibitions +of indigent Philistinism to go by without raising an objection; yea, that it +does not even possess sufficient sense of humour to feel tickled at the sight +of an unaesthetic little master's sitting in judgment upon Beethoven. As to +Mozart, what Aristotle says of Plato ought really to be applied here: +"Insignificant people ought not to be permitted even to praise him." In this +respect, however, all shame has vanished—from the public as well as from +the Master's mind: he is allowed, not merely to cross himself before the +greatest and purest creations of German genius, as though he had perceived +something godless and immoral in them, but people actually rejoice over his +candid confessions and admission of sins—more particularly as he makes no +mention of his own, but only of those which great men are said to have +committed. Oh, if only our Master be in the right! his readers sometimes think, +when attacked by a paroxysm of doubt; he himself, however, stands there, +smiling and convinced, perorating, condemning, blessing, raising his hat to +himself, and is at any minute capable of saying what the Duchesse Delaforte +said to Madame de Staël, to wit: "My dear, I must confess that I find no one +but myself invariably right." +</p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p> +A corpse is a pleasant thought for a worm, and a worm is a dreadful thought for +every living creature. Worms fancy their kingdom of heaven in a fat body; +professors of philosophy seek theirs in rummaging among Schopenhauer's +entrails, and as long as rodents exist, there will exist a heaven for rodents. +In this, we have the answer to our first question: How does the believer in the +new faith picture his heaven? The Straussian Philistine harbours in the works +of our great poets and musicians like a parasitic worm whose life is +destruction, whose admiration is devouring, and whose worship is digesting. +</p> + +<p> +Now, however, our second question must be answered: How far does the courage +lent to its adherents by this new faith extend? Even this question would +already have been answered, if courage and pretentiousness had been one; for +then Strauss would not be lacking even in the just and veritable courage of a +Mameluke. At all events, the "becoming modesty" of which Strauss speaks in the +above-mentioned passage, where he is referring to Beethoven, can only be a +stylistic and not a moral manner of speech. Strauss has his full share of the +temerity to which every successful hero assumes the right: all flowers grow +only for him—the conqueror; and he praises the sun because it shines in +at his window just at the right time. He does not even spare the venerable old +universe in his eulogies—as though it were only now and henceforward +sufficiently sanctified by praise to revolve around the central monad David +Strauss. The universe, he is happy to inform us, is, it is true, a machine with +jagged iron wheels, stamping and hammering ponderously, but: "We do not only +find the revolution of pitiless wheels in our world-machine, but also the +shedding of soothing oil" (p. 435). The universe, provided it submit to +Strauss's encomiums, is not likely to overflow with gratitude towards this +master of weird metaphors, who was unable to discover better similes in its +praise. But what is the oil called which trickles down upon the hammers and +stampers? And how would it console a workman who chanced to get one of his +limbs caught in the mechanism to know that this oil was trickling over him? +Passing over this simile as bad, let us turn our attention to another of +Strauss's artifices, whereby he tries to ascertain how he feels disposed +towards the universe; this question of Marguerite's, "He loves me—loves +me not—loves me?" hanging on his lips the while. Now, although Strauss is +not telling flower-petals or the buttons on his waistcoat, still what he does +is not less harmless, despite the fact that it needs perhaps a little more +courage. Strauss wishes to make certain whether his feeling for the "All" is +either paralysed or withered, and he pricks himself; for he knows that one can +prick a limb that is either paralysed or withered without causing any pain. As +a matter of fact, he does not really prick himself, but selects another more +violent method, which he describes thus: "We open Schopenhauer, who takes every +occasion of slapping our idea in the face" (p. 167). Now, as an idea—even +that of Strauss's concerning the universe—has no face, if there be any +face in the question at all it must be that of the idealist, and the procedure +may be subdivided into the following separate actions:—Strauss, in any +case, throws Schopenhauer open, whereupon the latter slaps Strauss in the face. +Strauss then reacts religiously; that is to say, he again begins to belabour +Schopenhauer, to abuse him, to speak of absurdities, blasphemies, dissipations, +and even to allege that Schopenhauer could not have been in his right senses. +Result of the dispute: "We demand the same piety for our Cosmos that the devout +of old demanded for his God"; or, briefly, "He loves me." Our favourite of the +Graces makes his life a hard one, but he is as brave as a Mameluke, and fears +neither the Devil nor Schopenhauer. How much "soothing oil" must he use if such +incidents are of frequent occurrence! +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, we readily understand Strauss's gratitude to this tickling, +pricking, and slapping Schopenhauer; hence we are not so very much surprised +when we find him expressing himself in the following kind way about him: "We +need only turn over the leaves of Arthur Schopenhauer's works (although we +shall on many other accounts do well not only to glance over but to study +them), etc." (p. 166). Now, to whom does this captain of Philistines address +these words? To him who has clearly never even studied Schopenhauer, the latter +might well have retorted, "This is an author who does not even deserve to be +scanned, much less to be studied." Obviously, he gulped Schopenhauer down "the +wrong way," and this hoarse coughing is merely his attempt to clear his throat. +But, in order to fill the measure of his ingenuous encomiums, Strauss even +arrogates to himself the right of commending old Kant: he speaks of the +latter's <i>General History of the Heavens of the Year 1755</i> as of "a work +which has always appeared to me not less important than his later <i>Critique +of Pure Reason</i>. If in the latter we admire the depth of insight, the +breadth of observation strikes us in the former. If in the latter we can trace +the old man's anxiety to secure even a limited possession of knowledge—so +it be but on a firm basis—in the former we encounter the mature man, full +of the daring of the discoverer and conqueror in the realm of thought." This +judgment of Strauss's concerning Kant did not strike me as being more modest +than the one concerning Schopenhauer. In the one case, we have the little +captain, who is above all anxious to express even the most insignificant +opinion with certainty, and in the other we have the famous prose-writer, who, +with all the courage of ignorance, exudes his eulogistic secretions over Kant. +It is almost incredible that Strauss availed himself of nothing in Kant's +<i>Critique of Pure Reason</i> while compiling his Testament of modern ideas, +and that he knew only how to appeal to the coarsest realistic taste must also +be numbered among the more striking characteristics of this new gospel, the +which professes to be but the result of the laborious and continuous study of +history and science, and therefore tacitly repudiates all connection with +philosophy. For the Philistine captain and his "We," Kantian philosophy does +not exist. He does not dream of the fundamental antinomy of idealism and of the +highly relative sense of all science and reason. And it is precisely reason +that ought to tell him how little it is possible to know of things in +themselves. It is true, however, that people of a certain age cannot possibly +understand Kant, especially when, in their youth, they understood or fancied +they understood that "gigantic mind," Hegel, as Strauss did; and had moreover +concerned themselves with Schleiermacher, who, according to Strauss, "was +gifted with perhaps too much acumen." It will sound odd to our author when I +tell him that, even now, he stands absolutely dependent upon Hegel and +Schleiermacher, and that his teaching of the Cosmos, his way of regarding +things <i>sub specie biennii</i>, his salaams to the state of affairs now +existing in Germany, and, above all, his shameless Philistine optimism, can +only be explained by an appeal to certain impressions of youth, early habits, +and disorders; for he who has once sickened on Hegel and Schleiermacher never +completely recovers. +</p> + +<p> +There is one passage in the confession-book where the incurable optimism +referred to above bursts forth with the full joyousness of holiday spirits (pp. +166-67). "If the universe is a thing which had better not have existed," says +Strauss, "then surely the speculation of the philosopher, as forming part of +this universe, is a speculation which had better not have speculated. The +pessimist philosopher fails to perceive that he, above all, declares his own +thought, which declares the world to be bad, as bad also; but if the thought +which declares the world to be bad is a bad thought, then it follows naturally +that the world is good. As a rule, optimism may take things too easily. +Schopenhauer's references to the colossal part which sorrow and evil play in +the world are quite in their right place as a counterpoise; but every true +philosophy is necessarily optimistic, as otherwise she hews down the branch on +which she herself is sitting." If this refutation of Schopenhauer is not the +same as that to which Strauss refers somewhere else as "the refutation loudly +and jubilantly acclaimed in higher spheres," then I quite fail to understand +the dramatic phraseology used by him elsewhere to strike an opponent. Here +optimism has for once intentionally simplified her task. But the master-stroke +lay in thus pretending that the refutation of Schopenhauer was not such a very +difficult task after all, and in playfully wielding the burden in such a manner +that the three Graces attendant on the dandling optimist might constantly be +delighted by his methods. The whole purpose of the deed was to demonstrate this +one truth, that it is quite unnecessary to take a pessimist seriously; the most +vapid sophisms become justified, provided they show that, in regard to a +philosophy as "unhealthy and unprofitable" as Schopenhauer's, not proofs but +quips and sallies alone are suitable. While perusing such passages, the reader +will grasp the full meaning of Schopenhauer's solemn utterance to the effect +that, where optimism is not merely the idle prattle of those beneath whose flat +brows words and only words are stored, it seemed to him not merely an absurd +<i>but a vicious attitude of mind</i>, and one full of scornful irony towards +the indescribable sufferings of humanity. When a philosopher like Strauss is +able to frame it into a system, it becomes more than a vicious attitude of +mind—it is then an imbecile gospel of comfort for the "I" or for the +"We," and can only provoke indignation. +</p> + +<p> +Who could read the following psychological avowal, for instance, without +indignation, seeing that it is obviously but an offshoot from this vicious +gospel of comfort?—"Beethoven remarked that he could never have composed +a text like Figaro or Don Juan. <i>Life had not been so profuse of its snubs to +him that he could treat it so gaily, or deal so lightly with the foibles of +men</i>" (p. 430). In order, however, to adduce the most striking instance of +this dissolute vulgarity of sentiment, let it suffice, here, to observe that +Strauss knows no other means of accounting for the terribly serious negative +instinct and the movement of ascetic sanctification which characterised the +first century of the Christian era, than by supposing the existence of a +previous period of surfeit in the matter of all kinds of sexual indulgence, +which of itself brought about a state of revulsion and disgust. +</p> + +<p> +"The Persians call it <i>bidamag buden</i>, The Germans say +'<i>Katzenjammer</i>.'"<b><a href="#footnote4">*</a></b> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="footnote4">]</a> +[Footnote <b>*</b> : Remorse for the previous night's +excesses.—Translator's note. +</p> + +<p> +Strauss quotes this himself, and is not ashamed. As for us, we turn aside for a +moment, that we may overcome our loathing. +</p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, our Philistine captain is brave, even audacious, in words; +particularly when he hopes by such bravery to delight his noble +colleagues—the "We," as he calls them. So the asceticism and self-denial +of the ancient anchorite and saint was merely a form of <i>Katzenjammer</i>? +Jesus may be described as an enthusiast who nowadays would scarcely have +escaped the madhouse, and the story of the Resurrection may be termed a +"world-wide deception." For once we will allow these views to pass without +raising any objection, seeing that they may help us to gauge the amount of +courage which our "classical Philistine" Strauss is capable of. Let us first +hear his confession: "It is certainly an unpleasant and a thankless task to +tell the world those truths which it is least desirous of hearing. It prefers, +in fact, to manage its affairs on a profuse scale, receiving and spending after +the magnificent fashion of the great, as long as there is anything left; should +any person, however, add up the various items of its liabilities, and anxiously +call its attention to the sum-total, he is certain to be regarded as an +importunate meddler. And yet this has always been the bent of my moral and +intellectual nature." A moral and intellectual nature of this sort might +possibly be regarded as courageous; but what still remains to be proved is, +whether this courage is natural and inborn, or whether it is not rather +acquired and artificial. Perhaps Strauss only accustomed himself by degrees to +the rôle of an importunate meddler, until he gradually acquired the courage of +his calling. Innate cowardice, which is the Philistine's birthright, would not +be incompatible with this mode of development, and it is precisely this +cowardice which is perceptible in the want of logic of those sentences of +Strauss's which it needed courage to pronounce. They sound like thunder, but +they do not clear the air. No aggressive action is performed: aggressive words +alone are used, and these he selects from among the most insulting he can find. +He moreover exhausts all his accumulated strength and energy in coarse and +noisy expression, and when once his utterances have died away he is more of a +coward even than he who has always held his tongue. The very shadow of his +deeds—his morality—shows us that he is a word-hero, and that he +avoids everything which might induce him to transfer his energies from mere +verbosity to really serious things. With admirable frankness, he announces that +he is no longer a Christian, but disclaims all idea of wishing to disturb the +contentment of any one: he seems to recognise a contradiction in the notion of +abolishing one society by instituting another—whereas there is nothing +contradictory in it at all. With a certain rude self-satisfaction, he swathes +himself in the hirsute garment of our Simian genealogists, and extols Darwin as +one of mankind's greatest benefactors; but our perplexity is great when we find +him constructing his ethics quite independently of the question, "What is our +conception of the universe?" In this department he had an opportunity of +exhibiting native pluck; for he ought to have turned his back on his "We," and +have established a moral code for life out of <i>bellum omnium contra omnes</i> +and the privileges of the strong. But it is to be feared that such a code could +only have emanated from a bold spirit like that of Hobbes', and must have taken +its root in a love of truth quite different from that which was only able to +vent itself in explosive outbursts against parsons, miracles, and the +"world-wide humbug" of the Resurrection. For, whereas the Philistine remained +on Strauss's side in regard to these explosive outbursts, he would have been +against him had he been confronted with a genuine and seriously constructed +ethical system, based upon Darwin's teaching. +</p> + +<p> +Says Strauss: "I should say that all moral action arises from the individual's +acting in consonance with the idea of kind" (p. 274). Put quite clearly and +comprehensively, this means: "Live as a man, and not as an ape or a seal." +Unfortunately, this imperative is both useless and feeble; for in the class +<i>Man</i> what a multitude of different types are included—to mention +only the Patagonian and the Master, Strauss; and no one would ever dare to say +with any right, "Live like a Patagonian," and "Live like the Master Strauss"! +Should any one, however, make it his rule to live like a genius—that is +to say, like the ideal type of the genus Man—and should he perchance at +the same time be either a Patagonian or Strauss himself, what should we then +not have to suffer from the importunities of genius-mad eccentrics (concerning +whose mushroom growth in Germany even Lichtenberg had already spoken), who with +savage cries would compel us to listen to the confession of their most recent +belief! Strauss has not yet learned that no "idea" can ever make man better or +more moral, and that the preaching of a morality is as easy as the +establishment of it is difficult. His business ought rather to have been, to +take the phenomena of human goodness, such—for instance—as pity, +love, and self-abnegation, which are already to hand, and seriously to explain +them and show their relation to his Darwinian first principle. But no; he +preferred to soar into the imperative, and thus escape the task of explaining. +But even in his flight he was irresponsible enough to soar beyond the very +first principles of which we speak. +</p> + +<p> +"Ever remember," says Strauss, "that thou art human, not merely a natural +production; ever remember that all others are human also, and, with all +individual differences, the same as thou, having the same needs and claims as +thyself: this is the sum and the substance of morality" (p. 277). But where +does this imperative hail from? How can it be intuitive in man, seeing that, +according to Darwin, man is indeed a creature of nature, and that his ascent to +his present stage of development has been conditioned by quite different +laws—by the very fact that be was continually forgetting that others were +constituted like him and shared the same rights with him; by the very fact that +he regarded himself as the stronger, and thus brought about the gradual +suppression of weaker types. Though Strauss is bound to admit that no two +creatures have ever been quite alike, and that the ascent of man from the +lowest species of animals to the exalted height of the Culture—Philistine +depended upon the law of individual distinctness, he still sees no difficulty +in declaring exactly the reverse in his law: "Behave thyself as though there +were no such things as individual distinctions." Where is the Strauss-Darwin +morality here? Whither, above all, has the courage gone? +</p> + +<p> +In the very next paragraph we find further evidence tending to show us the +point at which this courage veers round to its opposite; for Strauss continues: +"Ever remember that thou, and all that thou beholdest within and around thee, +all that befalls thee and others, is no disjointed fragment, no wild chaos of +atoms or casualties, but that, following eternal law, it springs from the one +primal source of all life, all reason, and all good: this is the essence of +religion" (pp. 277-78). Out of that "one primal source," however, all ruin and +irrationality, all evil flows as well, and its name, according to Strauss, is +Cosmos. +</p> + +<p> +Now, how can this Cosmos, with all the contradictions and the self-annihilating +characteristics which Strauss gives it, be worthy of religious veneration and +be addressed by the name "God," as Strauss addresses it?—"Our God does +not, indeed, take us into His arms from the outside (here one expects, as an +antithesis, a somewhat miraculous process of being "taken into His arms from +the inside"), but He unseals the well-springs of consolation within our own +bosoms. He shows us that although Chance would be an unreasonable ruler, yet +necessity, or the enchainment of causes in the world, is Reason itself." (A +misapprehension of which only the "We" can fail to perceive the folly; because +they were brought up in the Hegelian worship of Reality as the +Reasonable—that is to say, in the canonisation of success.) "He teaches +us to perceive that to demand an exception in the accomplishment of a single +natural law would be to demand the destruction of the universe" (pp. 435-36). +On the contrary, Great Master: an honest natural scientist believes in the +unconditional rule of natural laws in the world, without, however, taking up +any position in regard to the ethical or intellectual value of these laws. +Wherever neutrality is abandoned in this respect, it is owing to an +anthropomorphic attitude of mind which allows reason to exceed its proper +bounds. But it is just at the point where the natural scientist resigns that +Strauss, to put it in his own words, "reacts religiously," and leaves the +scientific and scholarly standpoint in order to proceed along less honest lines +of his own. Without any further warrant, he assumes that all that has happened +possesses the highest intellectual value; that it was therefore absolutely +reasonably and intentionally so arranged, and that it even contained a +revelation of eternal goodness. He therefore has to appeal to a complete +cosmodicy, and finds himself at a disadvantage in regard to him who is +contented with a theodicy, and who, for instance, regards the whole of man's +existence as a punishment for sin or a process of purification. At this stage, +and in this embarrassing position, Strauss even suggests a metaphysical +hypothesis—the driest and most palsied ever conceived—and, in +reality, but an unconscious parody of one of Lessing's sayings. We read on page +255: "And that other saying of Lessing's— 'If God, holding truth in His +right hand, and in His left only the ever-living desire for it, although on +condition of perpetual error, left him the choice of the two, he would, +considering that truth belongs to God alone, humbly seize His left hand, and +beg its contents for Himself'— this saying of Lessing's has always been +accounted one of the most magnificent which he has left us. It has been found +to contain the general expression of his restless love of inquiry and activity. +The saying has always made a special impression upon me; because, behind its +subjective meaning, I still seemed to hear the faint ring of an objective one +of infinite import. For does it not contain the best possible answer to the +rude speech of Schopenhauer, respecting the ill-advised God who had nothing +better to do than to transform Himself into this miserable world? if, for +example, the Creator Himself had shared Lessing's conviction of the superiority +of struggle to tranquil possession?" What!—a God who would choose +<i>perpetual error</i>, together with a striving after truth, and who would, +perhaps, fall humbly at Strauss's feet and cry to him,"Take thou all Truth, it +is thine!"? If ever a God and a man were ill-advised, they are this Straussian +God, whose hobby is to err and to fail, and this Straussian man, who must atone +for this erring and failing. Here, indeed, one hears "a faint ring of infinite +import"; here flows Strauss's cosmic soothing oil; here one has a notion of the +<i>rationale</i> of all becoming and all natural laws. Really? Is not our +universe rather the work of an inferior being, as Lichtenberg +suggests?—of an inferior being who did not quite understand his business; +therefore an experiment, an attempt, upon which work is still proceeding? +Strauss himself, then, would be compelled to admit that our universe is by no +means the theatre of reason, but of error, and that no conformity to law can +contain anything consoling, since all laws have been promulgated by an erratic +God who even finds pleasure in blundering. It really is a most amusing +spectacle to watch Strauss as a metaphysical architect, building castles in the +air. But for whose benefit is this entertainment given? For the smug and noble +"We," that they may not lose conceit with themselves: they may possibly have +taken sudden fright, in the midst of the inflexible and pitiless wheel-works of +the world-machine, and are tremulously imploring their leader to come to their +aid. That is why Strauss pours forth the "soothing oil," that is why he leads +forth on a leash a God whose passion it is to err; it is for the same reason, +too, that he assumes for once the utterly unsuitable rôle of a metaphysical +architect. He does all this, because the noble souls already referred to are +frightened, and because he is too. And it is here that we reach the limit of +his courage, even in the presence of his "We." He does not dare to be honest, +and to tell them, for instance: "I have liberated you from a helping and +pitiful God: the Cosmos is no more than an inflexible machine; beware of its +wheels, that they do not crush you." He dare not do this. Consequently, he must +enlist the help of a witch, and he turns to metaphysics. To the Philistine, +however, even Strauss's metaphysics is preferable to Christianity's, and the +notion of an erratic God more congenial than that of one who works miracles. +For the Philistine himself errs, but has never yet performed a miracle. Hence +his hatred of the genius; for the latter is justly famous for the working of +miracles. It is therefore highly instructive to ascertain why Strauss, in one +passage alone, suddenly takes up the cudgels for genius and the aristocracy of +intellect in general. Whatever does he do it for? He does it out of +fear—fear of the social democrat. He refers to Bismarck and Moltke, +"whose greatness is the less open to controversy as it manifests itself in the +domain of tangible external facts. No help for it, therefore; even the most +stiff-necked and obdurate of these fellows must condescend to look up a little, +if only to get a sight, be it no farther than the knees, of those august +figures" (p.327). Do you, Master Metaphysician, perhaps intend to instruct the +social democrats in the art of getting kicks? The willingness to bestow them +may be met with everywhere, and you are perfectly justified in promising to +those who happen to be kicked a sight of those sublime beings as far as the +knee. "Also in the domain of art and science," Strauss continues, "there will +never be a dearth of kings whose architectural undertakings will find +employment for a multitude of carters." Granted; but what if the carters should +begin building? It does happen at times, Great Master, as you know, and then +the kings must grin and bear it. +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, this union of impudence and weakness, of daring words and +cowardly concessions, this cautious deliberation as to which sentences will or +will not impress the Philistine or smooth him down the right way, this lack of +character and power masquerading as character and power, this meagre wisdom in +the guise of omniscience,—these are the features in this book which I +detest. If I could conceive of young men having patience to read it and to +value it, I should sorrowfully renounce all hope for their future. And is this +confession of wretched, hopeless, and really despicable Philistinism supposed +to be the expression of the thousands constituting the "We" of whom Strauss +speaks, and who are to be the fathers of the coming generation? Unto him who +would fain help this coming generation to acquire what the present one does not +yet possess, namely, a genuine German culture, the prospect is a horrible one. +To such a man, the ground seems strewn with ashes, and all stars are obscured; +while every withered tree and field laid waste seems to cry to him: Barren! +Forsaken! Springtime is no longer possible here! He must feel as young Goethe +felt when he first peered into the melancholy atheistic twilight of the +<i>Système de la Nature</i>; to him this book seemed so grey, so Cimmerian and +deadly, that he could only endure its presence with difficulty, and shuddered +at it as one shudders at a spectre. +</p> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p> +We ought now to be sufficiently informed concerning the heaven and the courage +of our new believer to be able to turn to the last question: How does he write +his books? and of what order are his religious documents? +</p> + +<p> +He who can answer this question uprightly and without prejudice will be +confronted by yet another serious problem, and that is: How this Straussian +pocket-oracle of the German Philistine was able to pass through six editions? +And he will grow more than ever suspicious when he hears that it was actually +welcomed as a pocket-oracle, not only in scholastic circles, but even in German +universities as well. Students are said to have greeted it as a canon for +strong intellects, and, from all accounts, the professors raised no objections +to this view; while here and there people have declared it to be a <i>religions +book for scholars</i>. Strauss himself gave out that he did not intend his +profession of faith to be merely a reference-book for learned and cultured +people; but here let us abide by the fact that it was first and foremost a work +appealing to his colleagues, and was ostensibly a mirror in which they were to +see their own way of living faithfully reflected. For therein lay the feat. The +Master feigned to have presented us with a new ideal conception of the +universe, and now adulation is being paid him out of every mouth; because each +is in a position to suppose that he too regards the universe and life in the +same way. Thus Strauss has seen fulfilled in each of his readers what he only +demanded of the future. In this way, the extraordinary success of his book is +partly explained: "Thus we live and hold on our way in joy," the scholar cries +in his book, and delights to see others rejoicing over the announcement. If the +reader happen to think differently from the Master in regard to Darwin or to +capital punishment, it is of very little consequence; for he is too conscious +throughout of breathing an atmosphere that is familiar to him, and of hearing +but the echoes of his own voice and wants. However painfully this unanimity may +strike the true friend of German culture, it is his duty to be unrelenting in +his explanation of it as a phenomenon, and not to shrink from making this +explanation public. +</p> + +<p> +We all know the peculiar methods adopted in our own time of cultivating the +sciences: we all know them, because they form a part of our lives. And, for +this very reason, scarcely anybody seems to ask himself what the result of such +a cultivation of the sciences will mean to culture in general, even supposing +that everywhere the highest abilities and the most earnest will be available +for the promotion of culture. In the heart of the average scientific type +(quite irrespective of the examples thereof with which we meet to-day) there +lies a pure paradox: he behaves like the veriest idler of independent means, to +whom life is not a dreadful and serious business, but a sound piece of +property, settled upon him for all eternity; and it seems to him justifiable to +spend his whole life in answering questions which, after all is said and done, +can only be of interest to that person who believes in eternal life as an +absolute certainty. The heir of but a few hours, he sees himself encompassed by +yawning abysses, terrible to behold; and every step he takes should recall the +questions, Wherefore? Whither? and Whence? to his mind. But his soul rather +warms to his work, and, be this the counting of a floweret's petals or the +breaking of stones by the roadside, he spends his whole fund of interest, +pleasure, strength, and aspirations upon it. This paradox—the scientific +man—has lately dashed ahead at such a frantic speed in Germany, that one +would almost think the scientific world were a factory, in which every minute +wasted meant a fine. To-day the man of science works as arduously as the fourth +or slave caste: his study has ceased to be an occupation, it is a necessity; he +looks neither to the right nor to the left, but rushes through all +things—even through the serious matters which life bears in its +train—with that semi-listlessness and repulsive need of rest so +characteristic of the exhausted labourer. <i>This is also his attitude towards +culture</i>. He behaves as if life to him were not only <i>otium</i> but +<i>sine dignitate</i>: even in his sleep he does not throw off the yoke, but +like an emancipated slave still dreams of his misery, his forced haste and his +floggings. Our scholars can scarcely be distinguished—and, even then, not +to their advantage—from agricultural labourers, who in order to increase +a small patrimony, assiduously strive, day and night, to cultivate their +fields, drive their ploughs, and urge on their oxen. Now, Pascal suggests that +men only endeavour to work hard at their business and sciences with the view of +escaping those questions of greatest import which every moment of loneliness or +leisure presses upon them—the questions relating to the <i>wherefore</i>, +the <i>whence</i>, and the <i>whither</i> of life. Curiously enough, our +scholars never think of the most vital question of all—the wherefore of +their work, their haste, and their painful ecstasies. Surely their object is +not the earning of bread or the acquiring of posts of honour? No, certainly +not. But ye take as much pains as the famishing and breadless; and, with that +eagerness and lack of discernment which characterises the starving, ye even +snatch the dishes from the sideboard of science. If, however, as scientific +men, ye proceed with science as the labourers with the tasks which the +exigencies of life impose upon them, what will become of a culture which must +await the hour of its birth and its salvation in the very midst of all this +agitated and breathless running to and fro—this sprawling scientifically? +</p> + +<p> +For <i>it</i> no one has time—and yet for what shall science have time if +not for culture? Answer us here, then, at least: whence, whither, wherefore all +science, if it do not lead to culture? Belike to barbarity? And in this +direction we already see the scholar caste ominously advanced, if we are to +believe that such superficial books as this one of Strauss's meet the demand of +their present degree of culture. For precisely in him do we find that repulsive +need of rest and that incidental semi-listless attention to, and coming to +terms with, philosophy, culture, and every serious thing on earth. It will be +remembered that, at the meetings held by scholars, as soon as each individual +has had his say in his own particular department of knowledge, signs of +fatigue, of a desire for distraction at any price, of waning memory, and of +incoherent experiences of life, begin to be noticeable. While listening to +Strauss discussing any worldly question, be it marriage, the war, or capital +punishment, we are startled by his complete lack of anything like first-hand +experience, or of any original thought on human nature. All his judgments are +so redolent of books, yea even of newspapers. Literary reminiscences do duty +for genuine ideas and views, and the assumption of a moderate and grandfatherly +tone take the place of wisdom and mature thought. How perfectly in keeping all +this is with the fulsome spirit animating the holders of the highest places in +German science in large cities! How thoroughly this spirit must appeal to that +other! for it is precisely in those quarters that culture is in the saddest +plight; it is precisely there that its fresh growth is made impossible—so +boisterous are the preparations made by science, so sheepishly are favourite +subjects of knowledge allowed to oust questions of much greater import. What +kind of lantern would be needed here, in order to find men capable of a +complete surrender to genius, and of an intimate knowledge of its +depths—men possessed of sufficient courage and strength to exorcise the +demons that have forsaken our age? Viewed from the outside, such quarters +certainly do appear to possess the whole pomp of culture; with their imposing +apparatus they resemble great arsenals fitted with huge guns and other +machinery of war; we see preparations in progress and the most strenuous +activity, as though the heavens themselves were to be stormed, and truth were +to be drawn out of the deepest of all wells; and yet, in war, the largest +machines are the most unwieldy. Genuine culture therefore leaves such places as +these religiously alone, for its best instincts warn it that in their midst it +has nothing to hope for, and very much to fear. For the only kind of culture +with which the inflamed eye and obtuse brain of the scholar working-classes +concern themselves is of that Philistine order of which Strauss has announced +the gospel. If we consider for a moment the fundamental causes underlying the +sympathy which binds the learned working-classes to Culture-Philistinism, we +shall discover the road leading to Strauss the Writer, who has been +acknowledged classical, and tihence to our last and principal theme. +</p> + +<p> +To begin with, that culture has contentment written in its every feature, and +will allow of no important changes being introduced into the present state of +German education. It is above all convinced of the originality of all German +educational institutions, more particularly the public schools and +universities; it does not cease recommending these to foreigners, and never +doubts that if the Germans have become the most cultivated and discriminating +people on earth, it is owing to such institutions. Culture-Philistinism +believes in itself, consequently it also believes in the methods and means at +its disposal. Secondly, however, it leaves the highest judgment concerning all +questions of taste and culture to the scholar, and even regards itself as the +ever-increasing compendium of scholarly opinions regarding art, literature, and +philosophy. Its first care is to urge the scholar to express his opinions; +these it proceeds to mix, dilute, and systematise, and then it administers them +to the German people in the form of a bottle of medicine. What conies to life +outside this circle is either not heard or attended at all, or if heard, is +heeded half-heartedly; until, at last, a voice (it does not matter whose, +provided it belong to some one who is strictly typical of the scholar tribe) is +heard to issue from the temple in which traditional infallibility of taste is +said to reside; and from that time forward public opinion has one conviction +more, which it echoes and re-echoes hundreds and hundreds of times. As a matter +of fact, though, the aesthetic infallibility of any utterance emanating from +the temple is the more doubtful, seeing that the lack of taste, thought, and +artistic feeling in any scholar can be taken for granted, unless it has +previously been proved that, in his particular case, the reverse is true. And +only a few can prove this. For how many who have had a share in the breathless +and unending scurry of modern science have preserved that quiet and courageous +gaze of the struggling man of culture—if they ever possessed +it—that gaze which condemns even the scurry we speak of as a barbarous +state of affairs? That is why these few are forced to live in an almost +perpetual contradiction. What could they do against the uniform belief of the +thousands who have enlisted public opinion in their cause, and who mutually +defend each other in this belief? What purpose can it serve when one individual +openly declares war against Strauss, seeing that a crowd have decided in his +favour, and that the masses led by this crowd have learned to ask six +consecutive times for the Master's Philistine sleeping-mixture? +</p> + +<p> +If, without further ado, we here assumed that the Straussian confession-book +had triumphed over public opinion and had been acclaimed and welcomed as +conqueror, its author might call our attention to the fact that the +multitudinous criticisms of his work in the various public organs are not of an +altogether unanimous or even favourable character, and that he therefore felt +it incumbent upon him to defend himself against some of the more malicious, +impudent, and provoking of these newspaper pugilists by means of a postscript. +How can there be a public opinion concerning my book, he cries to us, if every +journalist is to regard me as an outlaw, and to mishandle me as much as he +likes? This contradiction is easily explained, as soon as one considers the two +aspects of the Straussian book—the theological and the literary, and it +is only the latter that has anything to do with German culture. Thanks to its +theological colouring, it stands beyond the pale of our German culture, and +provokes the animosity of the various theological groups—yea, even of +every individual German, in so far as he is a theological sectarian from birth, +and only invents his own peculiar private belief in order to be able to dissent +from every other form of belief. But when the question arises of talking about +Strauss THE WRITER, pray listen to what the theological sectarians have to say +about him. As soon as his literary side comes under notice, all theological +objections immediately subside, and the dictum comes plain and clear, as if +from the lips of one congregation: <i>In spite of it all, he is still a +classical writer!</i> +</p> + +<p> +Everybody—even the most bigoted, orthodox Churchman—pays the writer +the most gratifying compliments, while there is always a word or two thrown in +as a tribute to his almost Lessingesque language, his delicacy of touch, or the +beauty and accuracy of his aesthetic views. As a book, therefore, the +Straussian performance appears to meet all the demands of an ideal example of +its kind. The theological opponents, despite the fact that their voices were +the loudest of all, nevertheless constitute but an infinitesimal portion of the +great public; and even with regard to them, Strauss still maintains that he is +right when he says: "Compared with my thousands of readers, a few dozen public +cavillers form but an insignificant minority, and they can hardly prove that +they are their faithful interpreters. It was obviously in the nature of things +that opposition should be clamorous and assent tacit." Thus, apart from the +angry bitterness which Strauss's profession of faith may have provoked here and +there, even the most fanatical of his opponents, to whom his voice seems to +rise out of an abyss, like the voice of a beast, are agreed as to his merits as +a writer; and that is why the treatment which Strauss has received at the hands +of the literary lackeys of the theological groups proves nothing against our +contention that Culture-Philistinism celebrated its triumph in this book. It +must be admitted that the average educated Philistine is a degree less honest +than Strauss, or is at least more reserved in his public utterances. But this +fact only tends to increase his admiration for honesty in another. At home, or +in the company of his equals, he may applaud with wild enthusiasm, but takes +care not to put on paper how entirely Strauss's words are in harmony with his +own innermost feelings. For, as we have already maintained, our +Culture-Philistine is somewhat of a coward, even in his strongest sympathies; +hence Strauss, who can boast of a trifle more courage than he, becomes his +leader, notwithstanding the fact that even Straussian pluck has its very +definite limits. If he overstepped these limits, as Schopenhauer does in almost +every sentence, he would then forfeit his position at the head of the +Philistines, and everybody would flee from him as precipitately as they are now +following in his wake. He who would regard this artful if not sagacious +moderation and this mediocre valour as an Aristotelian virtue, would certainly +be wrong; for the valour in question is not the golden mean between two faults, +but between a virtue and a fault—and in this mean, between virtue and +fault, all Philistine qualities are to be found. +</p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p> +"In spite of it all, he is still a classical writer." Well, let us see! Perhaps +we may now be allowed to discuss Strauss the stylist and master of language; +but in the first place let us inquire whether, as a literary man, he is equal +to the task of building his house, and whether he really understands the +architecture of a book. From this inquiry we shall be able to conclude whether +he is a respectable, thoughtful, and experienced author; and even should we be +forced to answer "No" to these questions, he may still, as a last shift, take +refuge in his fame as a classical prose-writer. This last-mentioned talent +alone, it is true, would not suffice to class him with the classical authors, +but at most with the classical improvisers and virtuosos of style, who, +however, in regard to power of expression and the whole planning and framing of +the work, reveal the awkward hand and the embarrassed eye of the bungler. We +therefore put the question, whether Strauss really possesses the artistic +strength necessary for the purpose of presenting us with a thing that is a +whole, <i>totum ponere</i>? +</p> + +<p> +As a rule, it ought to be possible to tell from the first rough sketch of a +work whether the author conceived the thing as a whole, and whether, in view of +this original conception, he has discovered the correct way of proceeding with +his task and of fixing its proportions. Should this most important Part of the +problem be solved, and should the framework of the building have been given its +most favourable proportions, even then there remains enough to be done: how +many smaller faults have to be corrected, how many gaps require filling in! +Here and there a temporary partition or floor was found to answer the +requirements; everywhere dust and fragments litter the ground, and no matter +where we look, we see the signs of work done and work still to be done. The +house, as a whole, is still uninhabitable and gloomy, its walls are bare, and +the wind blows in through the open windows. Now, whether this remaining, +necessary, and very irksome work has been satisfactorily accomplished by +Strauss does not concern us at present; our question is, whether the building +itself has been conceived as a whole, and whether its proportions are good? The +reverse of this, of course, would be a compilation of fragments—a method +generally adopted by scholars. They rely upon it that these fragments are +related among themselves, and thus confound the logical and the artistic +relation between them. Now, the relation between the four questions which +provide the chapter-headings of Strauss's book cannot be called a logical one. +Are we still Christians? Have we still a religion? What is our conception of +the universe? What is our rule of life? And it is by no means contended that +the relation is illogical simply because the third question has nothing to do +with the second, nor the fourth with the third, nor all three with the first. +The natural scientist who puts the third question, for instance, shows his +unsullied love of truth by the simple fact that he tacitly passes over the +second. And with regard to the subject of the fourth chapter—marriage, +republicanism, and capital punishment—Strauss himself seems to have been +aware that they could only have been muddled and obscured by being associated +with the Darwinian theory expounded in the third chapter; for he carefully +avoids all reference to this theory when discussing them. But the question, +"Are we still Christians?" destroys the freedom of the philosophical standpoint +at one stroke, by lending it an unpleasant theological colouring. Moreover, in +this matter, he quite forgot that the majority of men to-day are not Christians +at all, but Buddhists. Why should one, without further ceremony, immediately +think of Christianity at the sound of the words "old faith"? Is this a sign +that Strauss has never ceased to be a Christian theologian, and that he has +therefore never learned to be a philosopher? For we find still greater cause +for surprise in the fact that he quite fails to distinguish between belief and +knowledge, and continually mentions his "new belief" and the still newer +science in one breath. Or is "new belief" merely an ironical concession to +ordinary parlance? This almost seems to be the case; for here and there he +actually allows "new belief" and "newer science" to be interchangeable terms, +as for instance on page II, where he asks on which side, whether on that of the +ancient orthodoxy or of modern science, "exist more of the obscurities and +insufficiencies unavoidable in human speculation." +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, according to the scheme laid down in the Introduction, his desire is +to disclose those proofs upon which the modern view of life is based; but he +derives all these proofs from science, and in this respect assumes far more the +attitude of a scientist than of a believer. +</p> + +<p> +At bottom, therefore, the religion is not a new belief, but, being of a piece +with modern science, it has nothing to do with religion at all. If Strauss, +however, persists in his claims to be religious, the grounds for these claims +must be beyond the pale of recent science. Only the smallest portion of the +Straussian book—that is to say, but a few isolated pages—refer to +what Strauss in all justice might call a belief, namely, that feeling for the +"All" for which he demands the piety that the old believer demanded for his +God. On the pages in question, however, he cannot claim to be altogether +scientific; but if only he could lay claim to being a little stronger, more +natural, more outspoken, more pious, we should be content. Indeed, what perhaps +strikes us most forcibly about him is the multitude of artificial procedures of +which he avails himself before he ultimately gets the feeling that he still +possesses a belief and a religion; he reaches it by means of stings and blows, +as we have already seen. How indigently and feebly this emergency-belief +presents itself to us! We shiver at the sight of it. +</p> + +<p> +Although Strauss, in the plan laid down in his Introduction, promises to +compare the two faiths, the old and the new, and to show that the latter will +answer the same purpose as the former, even <i>he</i> begins to feel, in the +end, that he has promised too much. For the question whether the new belief +answers the same purpose as the old, or is better or worse, is disposed of +incidentally, so to speak, and with uncomfortable haste, in two or three pages +(p. 436 et seq.-), and is actually bolstered up by the following subterfuge: +"He who cannot help himself in this matter is beyond help, is not yet ripe for +our standpoint" (p. 436). How differently, and with what intensity of +conviction, did the ancient Stoic believe in the All and the rationality of the +All! And, viewed in this light, how does Strauss's claim to originality appear? +But, as we have already observed, it would be a matter of indifference to us +whether it were new, old, original, or imitated, so that it were only more +powerful, more healthy, and more natural. Even Strauss himself leaves this +double-distilled emergency-belief to take care of itself as often as he can do +so, in order to protect himself and us from danger, and to present his recently +acquired biological knowledge to his "We" with a clear conscience. The more +embarrassed he may happen to be when he speaks of faith, the rounder and fuller +his mouth becomes when he quotes the greatest benefactor to modern men-Darwin. +Then he not only exacts belief for the new Messiah, but also for +himself—the new apostle. For instance, while discussing one of the most +intricate questions in natural history, he declares with true ancient pride: "I +shall be told that I am here speaking of things about which I understand +nothing. Very well; but others will come who will understand them, and who will +also have understood me" (p. 241). +</p> + +<p> +According to this, it would almost seem as though the famous "We" were not only +in duty bound to believe in the "All," but also in the naturalist Strauss; in +this case we can only hope that in order to acquire the feeling for this last +belief, other processes are requisite than the painful and cruel ones demanded +by the first belief. Or is it perhaps sufficient in this case that the subject +of belief himself be tormented and stabbed with the view of bringing the +believers to that "religious reaction" which is the distinguishing sign of the +"new faith." What merit should we then discover in the piety of those whom +Strauss calls "We"? +</p> + +<p> +Otherwise, it is almost to be feared that modern men will pass on in pursuit of +their business without troubling themselves overmuch concerning the new +furniture of faith offered them by the apostle: just as they have done +heretofore, without the doctrine of the rationality of the All. The whole of +modern biological and historical research has nothing to do with the Straussian +belief in the All, and the fact that the modern Philistine does not require the +belief is proved by the description of his life given by Strauss in the +chapter,"What is our Rule of Life?" He is therefore quite right in doubting +whether the coach to which his esteemed readers have been obliged to trust +themselves "with him, fulfils every requirement." It certainly does not; for +the modern man makes more rapid progress when he does not take his place in the +Straussian coach, or rather, he got ahead much more quickly long before the +Straussian coach ever existed. Now, if it be true that the famous "minority" +which is "not to be overlooked," and of which, and in whose name, Strauss +speaks, "attaches great importance to consistency," it must be just as +dissatisfied with Strauss the Coachbuilder as we are with Strauss the Logician. +</p> + +<p> +Let us, however, drop the question of the logician. Perhaps, from the artistic +point of view, the book really is an example of a. well-conceived plan, and +does, after all, answer to the requirements of the laws of beauty, despite the +fact that it fails to meet with the demands of a well-conducted argument. And +now, having shown that he is neither a scientist nor a strictly correct and +systematic scholar, for the first time we approach the question: Is Strauss a +capable writer? Perhaps the task he set himself was not so much to scare people +away from the old faith as to captivate them by a picturesque and graceful +description of what life would be with the new. If he regarded scholars and +educated men as his most probable audience, experience ought certainly to have +told him that whereas one can shoot such men down with the heavy guns of +scientific proof, but cannot make them surrender, they may be got to capitulate +all the more quickly before "lightly equipped" measures of seduction. "Lightly +equipped," and "intentionally so," thus Strauss himself speaks of his own book. +Nor do his public eulogisers refrain from using the same expression in +reference to the work, as the following passage, quoted from one of the least +remarkable among them, and in which the same expression is merely paraphrased, +will go to prove:— +</p> + +<p> +"The discourse flows on with delightful harmony: wherever it directs its +criticism against old ideas it wields the art of demonstration, almost +playfully; and it is with some spirit that it prepares the new ideas it brings +so enticingly, and presents them to the simple as well as to the fastidious +taste. The arrangement of such diverse and conflicting material is well thought +out for every portion of it required to be touched upon, without being made too +prominent; at times the transitions leading from one subject to another are +artistically managed, and one hardly knows what to admire most—the skill +with which unpleasant questions are shelved, or the discretion with which they +are hushed up." +</p> + +<p> +The spirit of such eulogies, as the above clearly shows, is not quite so subtle +in regard to judging of what an author is able to do as in regard to what he +wishes. What Strauss wishes, however, is best revealed by his own emphatic and +not quite harmless commendation of Voltaire's charms, in whose service he might +have learned precisely those "lightly equipped" arts of which his admirer +speaks—granting, of course, that virtue may be acquired and a pedagogue +can ever be a dancer. +</p> + +<p> +Who could help having a suspicion or two, when reading the following passage, +for instance, in which Strauss says of Voltaire, "As a philosopher [he] is +certainly not original, but in the main a mere exponent of English +investigations: in this respect, however, he shows himself to be completely +master of his subject, which he presents with incomparable skill, in all +possible lights and from all possible sides, and is able withal to meet the +demands of thoroughness, without, however, being over-severe in his method"? +Now, all the negative traits mentioned in this passage might be applied to +Strauss. No one would contend, I suppose, that Strauss is original, or that he +is over-severe in his method; but the question is whether we can regard him as +"master of his subject," and grant him "incomparable skill"? The confession to +the effect that the treatise was intentionally "lightly equipped" leads us to +think that it at least aimed at incomparable skill. +</p> + +<p> +It was not the dream of our architect to build a temple, nor yet a house, but a +sort of summer-pavilion, surrounded by everything that the art of gardening can +provide. Yea, it even seems as if that mysterious feeling for the All were only +calculated to produce an aesthetic effect, to be, so to speak, a view of an +irrational element, such as the sea, looked at from the most charming and +rational of terraces. The walk through the first chapters— that is to +say, through the theological catacombs with all their gloominess and their +involved and baroque embellishments—was also no more than an aesthetic +expedient in order to throw into greater relief the purity, clearness, and +common sense of the chapter "What is our Conception of the Universe?" For, +immediately after that walk in the gloaming and that peep into the wilderness +of Irrationalism, we step into a hall with a skylight to it. Soberly and +limpidly it welcomes us: its mural decorations consist of astronomical charts +and mathematical figures; it is filled with scientific apparatus, and its +cupboards contain skeletons, stuffed apes, and anatomical specimens. But now, +really rejoicing for the first time, we direct our steps into the innermost +chamber of bliss belonging to our pavilion-dwellers; there we find them with +their wives, children, and newspapers, occupied in the commonplace discussion +of politics; we listen for a moment to their conversation on marriage, +universal suffrage, capital punishment, and workmen's strikes, and we can +scarcely believe it to be possible that the rosary of public opinions can be +told off so quickly. At length an attempt is made to convince us of the +classical taste of the inmates. A moment's halt in the library, and the +music-room suffices to show us what we had expected all along, namely, that the +best books lay on the shelves, and that the most famous musical compositions +were in the music-cabinets. Some one actually played something to us, and even +if it were Haydn's music, Haydn could not be blamed because it sounded like +Riehl's music for the home. Meanwhile the host had found occasion to announce +to us his complete agreement with Lessing and Goethe, although with the latter +only up to the second part of Faust. At last our pavilion-owner began to praise +himself, and assured us that he who could not be happy under his roof was +beyond help and could not be ripe for his standpoint, whereupon he offered us +his coach, but with the polite reservation that he could not assert that it +would fulfil every requirement, and that, owing to the stones on his road +having been newly laid down, we were not to mind if we were very much jolted. +Our Epicurean garden-god then took leave of us with the incomparable skill +which he praised in Voltaire. +</p> + +<p> +Who could now persist in doubting the existence of this incomparable skill? The +complete master of his subject is revealed; the lightly equipped +artist-gardener is exposed, and still we hear the voice of the classical author +saying, "As a writer I shall for once cease to be a Philistine: I will not be +one; I refuse to be one! But a Voltaire—the German Voltaire—or at +least the French Lessing." +</p> + +<p> +With this we have betrayed a secret. Our Master does not always know which he +prefers to be—Voltaire or Lessing; but on no account will he be a +Philistine. At a pinch he would not object to being both Lessing and +Voltaire—that the word might be fulfilled that is written, "He had no +character, but when he wished to appear as if he had, he assumed one." +</p> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<p> +If we have understood Strauss the Confessor correctly, he must be a genuine +Philistine, with a narrow, parched soul and scholarly and common-place needs; +albeit no one would be more indignant at the title than David Strauss the +Writer. He would be quite happy to be regarded as mischievous, bold, malicious, +daring; but his ideal of bliss would consist in finding himself compared with +either Lessing or Voltaire—because these men were undoubtedly anything +but Philistines. In striving after this state of bliss, he often seems to waver +between two alternatives—either to mimic the brave and dialectical +petulance of Lessing, or to affect the manner of the faun-like and +free-spirited man of antiquity that Voltaire was. When taking up his pen to +write, he seems to be continually posing for his portrait; and whereas at times +his features are drawn to look like Lessing's, anon they are made to assume the +Voltairean mould. While reading his praise of Voltaire's manner, we almost seem +to see him abjuring the consciences of his contemporaries for not having +learned long ago what the modern Voltaire had to offer them. "Even his +excellences are wonderfully uniform," he says: "simple naturalness, transparent +clearness, vivacious mobility, seductive charm. Warmth and emphasis are also +not wanting where they are needed, and Voltaire's innermost nature always +revolted against stiltedness and affectation; while, on the other hand, if at +times wantonness or passion descend to an unpleasantly low level, the fault +does not rest so much with the stylist as with the man." According to this, +Strauss seems only too well aware of the importance of <i>simplicity in +style</i>; it is ever the sign of genius, which alone has the privilege to +express itself naturally and guilelessly. When, therefore, an author selects a +simple mode of expression, this is no sign whatever of vulgar ambition; for +although many are aware of what such an author would fain be taken for, they +are yet kind enough to take him precisely for that. The genial writer, however, +not only reveals his true nature in the plain and unmistakable form of his +utterance, but his super-abundant strength actually dallies with the material +he treats, even when it is dangerous and difficult. Nobody treads stiffly along +unknown paths, especially when these are broken throughout their course by +thousands of crevices and furrows; but the genius speeds nimbly over them, and, +leaping with grace and daring, scorns the wistful and timorous step of caution. +</p> + +<p> +Even Strauss knows that the problems he prances over are dreadfully serious, +and have ever been regarded as such by the philosophers who have grappled with +them; yet he calls his book <i>lightly equipped</i>! But of this dreadfulness +and of the usual dark nature of our meditations when considering such questions +as the worth of existence and the duties of man, we entirely cease to be +conscious when the genial Master plays his antics before us, "lightly equipped, +and intentionally so." Yes, even more lightly equipped than his Rousseau, of +whom he tells us it was said that he stripped himself below and adorned himself +on top, whereas Goethe did precisely the reverse. Perfectly guileless geniuses +do not, it appears, adorn themselves at all; possibly the words "lightly +equipped" may simply be a euphemism for "naked." The few who happen to have +seen the Goddess of Truth declare that she is naked, and perhaps, in the minds +of those who have never seen her, but who implicitly believe those few, +nakedness or light equipment is actually a proof, or at least a feature, of +truthi Even this vulgar superstition turns to the advantage of the author's +ambition. Some one sees something naked, and he exclaims: "What if this were +the truth!" Whereupon he grows more solemn than is his wont. By this means, +however, the author scores a tremendous advantage; for he compels his reader to +approach him with greater solemnity than another and perhaps more heavily +equipped writer. This is unquestionably the best way to become a classical +author; hence Strauss himself is able to tell us: "I even enjoy the unsought +honour of being, in the opinion of many, a classical writer of prose. "He has +therefore achieved his aim. Strauss the Genius goes gadding about the streets +in the garb of lightly equipped goddesses as a classic, while Strauss the +Philistine, to use an original expression of this genius's, must, at all costs, +be "declared to be on the decline," or "irrevocably dismissed." +</p> + +<p> +But, alas! in spite of all declarations of decline and dismissal, the +Philistine still returns, and all too frequently. Those features, contorted to +resemble Lessing and Voltaire, must relax from time to time to resume their old +and original shape. The mask of genius falls from them too often, and the +Master's expression is never more sour and his movements never stiffer than +when he has just attempted to take the leap, or to glance with the fiery eye, +of a genius. Precisely owing to the fact that he is too lightly equipped for +our zone, he runs the risk of catching cold more often and more severely than +another. It may seem a terrible hardship to him that every one should notice +this; but if he wishes to be cured, the following diagnosis of his case ought +to be publicly presented to him:— Once upon a time there lived a Strauss, +a brave, severe, and stoutly equipped scholar, with whom we sympathised as +wholly as with all those in Germany who seek to serve truth with earnestness +and energy, and to rule within the limits of their powers. He, however, who is +now publicly famous as David Strauss, is another person. The theologians may be +to blame for this metamorphosis; but, at any rate, his present toying with the +mask of genius inspires us with as much hatred and scorn as his former +earnestness commanded respect and sympathy. When, for instance, he tells us, +"it would also argue ingratitude towards <i>my genius</i> if I were not to +rejoice that to the faculty of an incisive, analytical criticism was added the +innocent pleasure in artistic production," it may astonish him to hear that, in +spite of this self-praise, there are still men who maintain exactly the +reverse, and who say, not only that he has never possessed the gift of artistic +production, but that the "innocent" pleasure he mentions is of all things the +least innocent, seeing that it succeeded in gradually undermining and +ultimately destroying a nature as strongly and deeply scholarly and critical as +Strauss's—in fact, <i>the real Straussian Genius</i>. In a moment of +unlimited frankness, Strauss himself indeed adds: "Merck was always in my +thoughts, calling out, 'Don't produce such child's play again; others can do +that too!'" That was the voice of the real Straussian genius, which also asked +him what the worth of his newest, innocent, and lightly equipped modern +Philistine's testament was. Others can do that too! And many could do it +better. And even they who could have done it best, i.e. those thinkers who are +more widely endowed than Strauss, could still only have made nonsense of it. +</p> + +<p> +I take it that you are now beginning to understand the value I set on Strauss +the Writer. You are beginning to realise that I regard him as a mummer who +would parade as an artless genius and classical writer. When Lichtenberg said, +"A simple manner of writing is to be recommended, if only in view of the fact +that no honest man trims and twists his expressions," he was very far from +wishing to imply that a simple style is a proof of literary integrity. I, for +my part, only wish that Strauss the Writer had been more upright, for then he +would have written more becomingly and have been less famous. Or, if he would +be a mummer at all costs, how much more would he not have pleased me if he had +been a better mummer—one more able to ape the guileless genius and +classical author! For it yet remains to be said that Strauss was not only an +inferior actor but a very worthless stylist as well. +</p> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<p> +Of course, the blame attaching to Strauss for being a bad writer is greatly +mitigated by the fact that it is extremely difficult in Germany to become even +a passable or moderately good writer, and that it is more the exception than +not, to be a really good one. In this respect the natural soil is wanting, as +are also artistic values and the proper method of treating and cultivating +oratory. This latter accomplishment, as the various branches of it, i.e. +drawing-room, ecclesiastical and Parliamentary parlance, show, has not yet +reached the level of a national style; indeed, it has not yet shown even a +tendency to attain to a style at all, and all forms of language in Germany do +not yet seem to have passed a certain experimental stage. In view of these +facts, the writer of to-day, to some extent, lacks an authoritative standard, +and he is in some measure excused if, in the matter of language, he attempts to +go ahead of his own accord. As to the probable result which the present +dilapidated condition of the German language will bring about, Schopenhauer, +perhaps, has spoken most forcibly. "If the existing state of affairs +continues," he says, "in the year 1900 German classics will cease to be +understood, for the simple reason that no other language will be known, save +the trumpery jargon of the noble present, the chief characteristic of which is +impotence." And, in truth, if one turn to the latest periodicals, one will find +German philologists and grammarians already giving expression to the view that +our classics can no longer serve us as examples of style, owing to the fact +that they constantly use words, modes of speech, and syntactic arrangements +which are fast dropping out of currency. Hence the need of collecting specimens +of the finest prose that has been produced by our best modern writers, and of +offering them as examples to be followed, after the style of Sander's pocket +dictionary of bad language. In this book, that repulsive monster of style +Gutzkow appears as a classic, and, according to its injunctions, we seem to be +called upon to accustom ourselves to quite a new and wondrous crowd of +classical authors, among which the first, or one of the first, is David +Strauss: he whom we cannot describe more aptly than we have already—that +is to say, as a worthless stylist. Now, the notion which the Culture-Philistine +has of a classic and standard author speaks eloquently for his +pseudo-culture—he who only shows his strength by opposing a really +artistic and severe style, and who, thanks to the persistence of his +opposition, finally arrives at a certain uniformity of expression, which again +almost appears to possess unity of genuine style. In view, therefore, of the +right which is granted to every one to experiment with the language, how is it +possible at all for individual authors to discover a generally agreeable tone? +What is so generally interesting in them? In the first place, a negative +quality—the total lack of offensiveness: but <i>every really productive +thing is offensive</i>. The greater part of a German's daily reading matter is +undoubtedly sought either in the pages of newspapers, periodicals, or reviews. +The language of these journals gradually stamps itself on his brain, by means +of its steady drip, drip, drip of similar phrases and similar words. And, since +he generally devotes to reading those hours of the day during which his +exhausted brain is in any case not inclined to offer resistance, his ear for +his native tongue so slowly but surely accustoms itself to this everyday German +that it ultimately cannot endure its absence without pain. But the +manufacturers of these newspapers are, by virtue of their trade, most +thoroughly inured to the effluvia of this journalistic jargon; they have +literally lost all taste, and their palate is rather gratified than not by the +most corrupt and arbitrary innovations. Hence the tutti unisono with which, +despite the general lethargy and sickliness, every fresh solecism is greeted; +it is with such impudent corruptions of the language that her hirelings are +avenged against her for the incredible boredom she imposes ever more and more +upon them. I remember having read "an appeal to the German nation," by Berthold +Auerbach, in which every sentence was un-German, distorted and false, and +which, as a whole, resembled a soulless mosaic of words cemented together with +international syntax. As to the disgracefully slipshod German with which Edward +Devrient solemnised the death of Mendelssohn, I do not even wish to do more +than refer to it. A grammatical error—and this is the most extraordinary +feature of the case—does not therefore seem an offence in any sense to +our Philistine, but a most delightful restorative in the barren wilderness of +everyday German. He still, however, considers all <i>really</i> productive +things to be offensive. The wholly bombastic, distorted, and threadbare syntax +of the modern standard author—yea, even his ludicrous +neologisms—are not only tolerated, but placed to his credit as the spicy +element in his works. But woe to the stylist with character, who seeks as +earnestly and perseveringly to avoid the trite phrases of everyday parlance, as +the "yester-night monster blooms of modern ink-flingers," as Schopenhauer says! +When platitudes, hackneyed, feeble, and vulgar phrases are the rule, and the +bad and the corrupt become refreshing exceptions, then all that is strong, +distinguished, and beautiful perforce acquires an evil odour. From which it +follows that, in Germany, the well-known experience which befell the normally +built traveller in the land of hunchbacks is constantly being repeated. It will +be remembered that he was so shamefully insulted there, owing to his quaint +figure and lack of dorsal convexity, that a priest at last had to harangue the +people on his behalf as follows: "My brethren, rather pity this poor stranger, +and present thank-offerings unto the gods, that ye are blessed with such +attractive gibbosities." +</p> + +<p> +If any one attempted to compose a positive grammar out of the international +German style of to-day, and wished to trace the unwritten and unspoken laws +followed by every one, he would get the most extraordinary notions of style and +rhetoric. He would meet with laws which are probably nothing more than +reminiscences of bygone schooldays, vestiges of impositions for Latin prose, +and results perhaps of choice readings from French novelists, over whose +incredible crudeness every decently educated Frenchman would have the right to +laugh. But no conscientious native of Germany seems to have given a thought to +these extraordinary notions under the yoke of which almost every German lives +and writes. +</p> + +<p> +As an example of what I say, we may find an injunction to the effect that a +metaphor or a simile must be introduced from time to time, and that it must be +new; but, since to the mind of the shallow-pated writer newness and modernity +are identical, he proceeds forthwith to rack his brain for metaphors in the +technical vocabularies of the railway, the telegraph, the steamship, and the +Stock Exchange, and is proudly convinced that such metaphors must be new +because they are modern. In Strauss's confession-book we find liberal tribute +paid to modern metaphor. He treats us to a simile, covering a page and a half, +drawn from modern road-improvement work; a few pages farther back he likens the +world to a machine, with its wheels, stampers, hammers, and "soothing oil" (p. +432); "A repast that begins with champagne" (p. 384); "Kant is a cold-water +cure" (p. 309); "The Swiss constitution is to that of England as a watermill is +to a steam-engine, as a waltz-tune or a song to a fugue or symphony" (p. 301); +"In every appeal, the sequence of procedure must be observed. Now the mean +tribunal between the individual and humanity is the nation" (p. 165); "If we +would know whether there be still any life in an organism which appears dead to +us, we are wont to test it by a powerful, even painful stimulus, as for example +a stab" (p. 161); "The religious domain in the human soul resembles the domain +of the Red Indian in America" (p. 160); "Virtuosos in piety, in convents"(p. +107); "And place the sum-total of the foregoing in round numbers under the +account" (p. 205); "Darwin's theory resembles a railway track that is just +marked out... where the flags are fluttering joyfully in the breeze." In this +really highly modern way, Strauss has met the Philistine injunction to the +effect that a new simile must be introduced from time to time. +</p> + +<p> +Another rhetorical rule is also very widespread, namely, that didactic passages +should be composed in long periods, and should be drawn out into lengthy +abstractions, while all persuasive passages should consist of short sentences +followed by striking contrasts. On page 154 in Strauss's book we find a +standard example of the didactic and scholarly style—a passage blown out +after the genuine Schleiermacher manner, and made to stumble along at a true +tortoise pace: "The reason why, in the earlier stages of religion, there appear +many instead of this single Whereon, a plurality of gods instead of the one, is +explained in this deduction of religion, from the fact that the various forces +of nature, or relations of life, which inspire man with the sentiment of +unqualified dependence, still act upon him in the commencement with the full +force of their distinctive characteristics; that he has not as yet become +conscious how, in regard to his unmitigated dependence upon them, there is no +distinction between them, and that therefore the Whereon of this dependence, or +the Being to which it conducts in the last instance, can only be one." +</p> + +<p> +On pages 7 and 8 we find an example of the other kind of style, that of the +short sentences containing that affected liveliness which so excited certain +readers that they cannot mention Strauss any more without coupling his name +with Lessing's. "I am well aware that what I propose to delineate in the +following pages is known to multitudes as well as to myself, to some even much +better. A few have already spoken out on the subject. Am I therefore to keep +silence? I think not. For do we not all supply each other's deficiencies? If +another is better informed as regards some things, I may perhaps be so as +regards others; while yet others are known and viewed by me in a different +light. Out with it, then! let my colours be displayed that it may be seen +whether they are genuine or not.'" +</p> + +<p> +It is true that Strauss's style generally maintains a happy medium between this +sort of merry quick-march and the other funereal and indolent pace; but between +two vices one does not invariably find a virtue; more often rather only +weakness, helpless paralysis, and impotence. As a matter of fact, I was very +disappointed when I glanced through Strauss's book in search of fine and witty +passages; for, not having found anything praiseworthy in the Confessor, I had +actually set out with the express purpose of meeting here and there with at +least some opportunities of praising Strauss the Writer. I sought and sought, +but my purpose remained unfulfilled. Meanwhile, however, another duty seemed to +press itself strongly on my mind—that of enumerating the solecisms, the +strained metaphors, the obscure abbreviations, the instances of bad taste, and +the distortions which I encountered; and these were of such a nature that I +dare do no more than select a few examples of them from among a collection +which is too bulky to be given in full. By means of these examples I may +succeed in showing what it is that inspires, in the hearts of modern Germans, +such faith in this great and seductive stylist Strauss: I refer to his +eccentricities of expression, which, in the barren waste and dryness of his +whole book, jump out at one, not perhaps as pleasant but as painfully +stimulating, surprises. When perusing such passages, we are at least assured, +to use a Straussian metaphor, that we are not quite dead, but still respond to +the test of a stab. For the rest of the book is entirely lacking in +offensiveness —that quality which alone, as we have seen, is productive, +and which our classical author has himself reckoned among the positive virtues. +When the educated masses meet with exaggerated dulness and dryness, when they +are in the presence of really vapid commonplaces, they now seem to believe that +such things are the signs of health; and in this respect the words of the +author of the dialogus de oratoribus are very much to the point: "illam ipsam +quam jactant sanitatem non firmitate sed jejunio consequuntur." That is why +they so unanimously hate every firmitas, because it bears testimony to a kind +of health quite different from theirs; hence their one wish to throw suspicion +upon all austerity and terseness, upon all fiery and energetic movement, and +upon every full and delicate play of muscles. They have conspired to twist +nature and the names of things completely round, and for the future to speak of +health only there where we see weakness, and to speak of illness and +excitability where for our part we see genuine vigour. From which it follows +that David Strauss is to them a classical author. +</p> + +<p> +If only this dulness were of a severely logical order! but simplicity and +austerity in thought are precisely what these weaklings have lost, and in their +hands even our language has become illogically tangled. As a proof of this, let +any one try to translate Strauss's style into Latin: in the case of Kant, be it +remembered, this is possible, while with Schopenhauer it even becomes an +agreeable exercise. The reason why this test fails with Strauss's German is not +owing to the fact that it is more Teutonic than theirs, but because his is +distorted and illogical, whereas theirs is lofty and simple. Moreover, he who +knows how the ancients exerted themselves in order to learn to write and speak +correctly, and how the moderns omit to do so, must feel, as Schopenhauer says, +a positive relief when he can turn from a German book like the one under our +notice, to dive into those other works, those ancient works which seem to him +still to be written in a new language. "For in these books," says Schopenhauer, +"I find a regular and fixed language which, throughout, faithfully follows the +laws of grammar and orthography, so that I can give up my thoughts completely +to their matter; whereas in German I am constantly being disturbed by the +author's impudence and his continual attempts to establish his own +orthographical freaks and absurd ideas— the swaggering foolery of which +disgusts me. It is really a painful sight to see a fine old language, possessed +of classical literature, being botched by asses and ignoramuses!" +</p> + +<p> +Thus Schopenhauer's holy anger cries out to us, and you cannot say that you +have not been warned. He who turns a deaf ear to such warnings, and who +absolutely refuses to relinquish his faith in Strauss the classical author, can +only be given this last word of advice—to imitate his hero. In any case, +try it at your own risk; but you will repent it, not only in your style but in +your head, that it may be fulfilled which was spoken by the Indian prophet, +saying, "He who gnaweth a cow's horn gnaweth in vain and shorteneth his life; +for he grindeth away his teeth, yet his belly is empty." +</p> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<p> +By way of concluding, we shall proceed to give our classical prose-writer the +promised examples of his style which we have collected. Schopenhauer would +probably have classed the whole lot as "new documents serving to swell the +trumpery jargon of the present day"; for David Strauss may be comforted to hear +(if what follows can be regarded as a comfort at all) that everybody now writes +as he does; some, of course, worse, and that among the blind the one-eyed is +king. Indeed, we allow him too much when we grant him one eye; but we do this +willingly, because Strauss does not write so badly as the most infamous of all +corrupters of German—the Hegelians and their crippled offspring. Strauss +at least wishes to extricate himself from the mire, and he is already partly +out of it; still, he is very far from being on dry land, and he still shows +signs of having stammered Hegel's prose in youth. In those days, possibly, +something was sprained in him, some muscle must have been overstrained. His +ear, perhaps, like that of a boy brought up amid the beating of drums, grew +dull, and became incapable of detecting those artistically subtle and yet +mighty laws of sound, under the guidance of which every writer is content to +remain who has been strictly trained in the study of good models. But in this +way, as a stylist, he has lost his most valuable possessions, and stands +condemned to remain reclining, his life long, on the dangerous and barren +shifting sand of newspaper style—that is, if he do not wish to fall back +into the Hegelian mire. Nevertheless, he has succeeded in making himself famous +for a couple of hours in our time, and perhaps in another couple of hours +people will remember that he was once famous; then, however, night will come, +and with her oblivion; and already at this moment, while we are entering his +sins against style in the black book, the sable mantle of twilight is falling +upon his fame. For he who has sinned against the German language has desecrated +the mystery of all our Germanity. Throughout all the confusion and the changes +of races and of customs, the German language alone, as though possessed of some +supernatural charm, has saved herself; and with her own salvation she has +wrought that of the spirit of Germany. She alone holds the warrant for this +spirit in future ages, provided she be not destroyed at the sacrilegious hands +of the modern world. "But <i>Di meliora</i>! Avaunt, ye pachyderms, avaunt! +This is the German language, by means of which men express themselves, and in +which great poets have sung and great thinkers have written. Hands off!" <b><a +href="#footnote5">*</a></b> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="footnote5"></a> +[Footnote <b>*</b> : Translator's note.—Nietzsche here proceeds to quote +those passages he has culled from <i>The Old and the New Faith</i> with which +he undertakes to substantiate all he has said relative to Strauss's style; as, +however, these passages, with his comments upon them, lose most of their point +when rendered into English, it was thought best to omit them altogether.] +</p> + +<p> +To put it in plain words, what we have seen have been feet of clay, and what +appeared to be of the colour of healthy flesh was only applied paint. Of +course, Culture-Philistinism in Germany will be very angry when it hears its +one living God referred to as a series of painted idols. He, however, who dares +to overthrow its idols will not shrink, despite all indignation, from telling +it to its face that it has forgotten how to distinguish between the quick and +the dead, the genuine and the counterfeit, the original and the imitation, +between a God and a host of idols; that it has completely lost the healthy and +manly instinct for what is real and right. It alone deserves to be destroyed; +and already the manifestations of its power are sinking; already are its purple +honours falling from it; but when the purple falls, its royal wearer soon +follows. +</p> + +<p> +Here I come to the end of my confession of faith. This is the confession of an +individual; and what can such an one do against a whole world, even supposing +his voice were heard everywhere! In order for the last time to use a precious +Straussism, his judgment only possesses <i>"that amount of subjective truth +which is compatible with a complete lack of objective +demonstration"</i>—is not that so, my dear friends? Meanwhile, be of good +cheer. For the time being let the matter rest at this "amount which is +compatible with a complete lack"! For the time being! That is to say, for as +long as that is held to be out of season which in reality is always in season, +and is now more than ever pressing; I refer to...speaking the truth.<b><a +href="#footnote6">*</a></b> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="footnote6"></a> +[Footnote <b>*</b> : Translator's note.—All quotations from The Old Faith +and the New which appear in the above translation have either been taken bodily +out of Mathilde Blind's translation (Asher and Co., 1873), or are adaptations +from that translation.] +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="wagner"></a>RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH.</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p> +FOR an event to be great, two things must be united—the lofty sentiment +of those who accomplish it, and the lofty sentiment of those who witness it. No +event is great in itself, even though it be the disappearance of whole +constellations, the destruction of several nations, the establishment of vast +empires, or the prosecution of wars at the cost of enormous forces: over things +of this sort the breath of history blows as if they were flocks of wool. But it +often happens, too, that a man of might strikes a blow which falls without +effect upon a stubborn stone; a short, sharp report is heard, and all is over. +History is able to record little or nothing of such abortive efforts. Hence the +anxiety which every one must feel who, observing the approach of an event, +wonders whether those about to witness it will be worthy of it. This +reciprocity between an act and its reception is always taken into account when +anything great or small is to be accomplished; and he who would give anything +away must see to it that he find recipients who will do justice to the meaning +of his gift. This is why even the work of a great man is not necessarily great +when it is short, abortive, or fruitless; for at the moment when he performed +it he must have failed to perceive that it was really necessary; he must have +been careless in his aim, and he cannot have chosen and fixed upon the time +with sufficient caution. Chance thus became his master; for there is a very +intimate relation between greatness and the instinct which discerns the proper +moment at which to act. +</p> + +<p> +We therefore leave it to those who doubt Wagner's power of discerning the +proper time for action, to be concerned and anxious as to whether what is now +taking place in Bayreuth is really opportune and necessary. To us who are more +confident, it is clear that he believes as strongly in the greatness of his +feat as in the greatness of feeling in those who are to witness it. Be their +number great or small, therefore, all those who inspire this faith in Wagner +should feel extremely honoured; for that it was not inspired by everybody, or +by the whole age, or even by the whole German people, as they are now +constituted, he himself told us in his dedicatory address of the 22nd of May +1872, and not one amongst us could, with any show of conviction, assure him of +the contrary. "I had only you to turn to," he said, "when I sought those who I +thought would be in sympathy with my plans,— you who are the most +personal friends of my own particular art, my work and activity: only you could +I invite to help me in my work, that it might be presented pure and whole to +those who manifest a genuine interest in my art, despite the fact that it has +hitherto made its appeal to them only in a disfigured and adulterated form." +</p> + +<p> +It is certain that in Bayreuth even the spectator is a spectacle worth seeing. +If the spirit of some observant sage were to return, after the absence of a +century, and were to compare the most remarkable movements in the present world +of culture, he would find much to interest him there. Like one swimming in a +lake, who encounters a current of warm water issuing from a hot spring, in +Bayreuth he would certainly feel as though he had suddenly plunged into a more +temperate element, and would tell himself that this must rise out of a distant +and deeper source: the surrounding mass of water, which at all events is more +common in origin, does not account for it. In this way, all those who assist at +the Bayreuth festival will seem like men out of season; their raison-d'etre and +the forces which would seem to account for them are elsewhere, and their home +is not in the present age. I realise ever more clearly that the scholar, in so +far as he is entirely the man of his own day, can only be accessible to all +that Wagner does and thinks by means of parody,—and since everything is +parodied nowadays, he will even get the event of Bayreuth reproduced for him, +through the very un-magic lanterns of our facetious art-critics. And one ought +to be thankful if they stop at parody; for by means of it a spirit of aloofness +and animosity finds a vent which might otherwise hit upon a less desirable mode +of expression. Now, the observant sage already mentioned could not remain blind +to this unusual sharpness and tension of contrasts. They who hold by gradual +development as a kind of moral law must be somewhat shocked at the sight of one +who, in the course of a single lifetime, succeeds in producing something +absolutely new. Being dawdlers themselves, and insisting upon slowness as a +principle, they are very naturally vexed by one who strides rapidly ahead, and +they wonder how on earth he does it. No omens, no periods of transition, and no +concessions preceded the enterprise at Bayreuth; no one except Wagner knew +either the goal or the long road that was to lead to it. In the realm of art it +signifies, so to speak, the first circumnavigation of the world, and by this +voyage not only was there discovered an apparently new art, but Art itself. In +view of this, all modern arts, as arts of luxury which have degenerated through +having been insulated, have become almost worthless. And the same applies to +the nebulous and inconsistent reminiscences of a genuine art, which we as +modern Europeans derive from the Greeks; let them rest in peace, unless they +are now able to shine of their own accord in the light of a new interpretation. +The last hour has come for a good many things; this new art is a clairvoyante +that sees ruin approaching—not for art alone. Her warning voice must +strike the whole of our prevailing civilisation with terror the instant the +laughter which its parodies have provoked subsides. Let it laugh and enjoy +itself for yet a while longer! +</p> + +<p> +And as for us, the disciples of this revived art, we shall have time and +inclination for thoughtfulness, deep thoughtfulness. All the talk and noise +about art which has been made by civilisation hitherto must seem like shameless +obtrusiveness; everything makes silence a duty with us—the quinquennial +silence of the Pythagoreans. Which of us has not soiled his hands and heart in +the disgusting idolatry of modern culture? Which of us can exist without the +waters of purification? Who does not hear the voice which cries, "Be silent and +cleansed"? Be silent and cleansed! Only the merit of being included among those +who give ear to this voice will grant even us the <i>lofty look</i> necessary +to view the event at Bayreuth; and only upon this look depends the <i>great +future</i> of the event. +</p> + +<p> +When on that dismal and cloudy day in May 1872, after the foundation stone had +been laid on the height of Bayreuth, amid torrents of rain, and while Wagner +was driving back to the town with a small party of us, he was exceptionally +silent, and there was that indescribable look in his eyes as of one who has +turned his gaze deeply inwards. The day happened to be the first of his +sixtieth year, and his whole past now appeared as but a long preparation for +this great moment. It is almost a recognised fact that in times of exceptional +danger, or at all decisive and culminating points in their lives, men see the +remotest and most recent events of their career with singular vividness, and in +one rapid inward glance obtain a sort of panorama of a whole span of years in +which every event is faithfully depicted. What, for instance, must Alexander +the Great have seen in that instant when he caused Asia and Europe to be drunk +out of the same goblet? But what went through Wagner's mind on that +day—how he became what he is, and what he will be—we only can +imagine who are nearest to him, and can follow him, up to a certain point, in +his self-examination; but through his eyes alone is it possible for us to +understand his grand work, and by the help of this understanding vouch for its +fruitfulness. +</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p> +It were strange if what a man did best and most liked to do could not be traced +in the general outline of his life, and in the case of those who are remarkably +endowed there is all the more reason for supposing that their life will present +not only the counterpart of their character, as in the case of every one else, +but that it will present above all the counterpart of their intellect and their +most individual tastes. The life of the epic poet will have a dash of the Epos +in it—as from all accounts was the case with Goethe, whom the Germans +very wrongly regarded only as a lyrist—and the life of the dramatist will +probably be dramatic. +</p> + +<p> +The dramatic element in Wagner's <i>development</i> cannot be ignored, from the +time when his ruling passion became self-conscious and took possession of his +whole being. From that time forward there is an end to all groping, straying, +and sprouting of offshoots, and over his most tortuous deviations and +excursions, over the often eccentric disposition of his plans, a single law and +will are seen to rule, in which we have the explanation of his actions, however +strange this explanation may sometimes appear. There was, however, an +ante-dramatic period in Wagner's life—his childhood and youth— +which it is impossible to approach without discovering innumerable problems. At +this period there seems to be no promise yet of himself, and what one might +now, in a retrospect, regard as a pledge for his future greatness, amounts to +no more than a juxtaposition of traits which inspire more dismay than hope; a +restless and excitable spirit, nervously eager to undertake a hundred things at +the same time, passionately fond of almost morbidly exalted states of mind, and +ready at any moment to veer completely round from calm and profound meditation +to a state of violence and uproar. In his case there were no hereditary or +family influences at work to constrain him to the sedulous study of one +particular art. Painting, versifying, acting, and music were just as much +within his reach as the learning and the career of a scholar; and the +superficial inquirer into this stage of his life might even conclude that he +was born to be a dilettante. The small world within the bounds of which he grew +up was not of the kind we should choose to be the home of an artist. He ran the +constant risk of becoming infected by that dangerously dissipated attitude of +mind in which a person will taste of everything, as also by that condition of +slackness resulting from the fragmentary knowledge of all things, which is so +characteristic of University towns. His feelings were easily roused and but +indifferently satisfied; wherever the boy turned he found himself surrounded by +a wonderful and would-be learned activity, to which the garish theatres +presented a ridiculous contrast, and the entrancing strains of music a +perplexing one. Now, to the observer who sees things relatively, it must seem +strange that the modern man who happens to be gifted with exceptional talent +should as a child and a youth so seldom be blessed with the quality of +ingenuousness and of simple individuality, that he is so little able to have +these qualities at all. As a matter of fact, men of rare talent, like Goethe +and Wagner, much more often attain to ingenuousness in manhood than during the +more tender years of childhood and youth. And this is especially so with the +artist, who, being born with a more than usual capacity for imitating, succumbs +to the morbid multiformity of modern life as to a virulent disease of infancy. +As a child he will more closely resemble an old man. The wonderfully accurate +and original picture of youth which Wagner gives us in the Siegfried of the +Nibelungen Ring could only have been conceived by a man, and by one who had +discovered his youthfulness but late in life. Wagner's maturity, like his +adolesence, was also late in making its appearance, and he is thus, in this +respect alone, the very reverse of the precocious type. +</p> + +<p> +The appearance of his moral and intellectual strength was the prelude to the +drama of his soul. And how different it then became! His nature seems to have +been simplified at one terrible stroke, and divided against itself into two +instincts or spheres. From its innermost depths there gushes forth a passionate +will which, like a rapid mountain torrent, endeavours to make its way through +all paths, ravines, and crevices, in search of light and power. Only a force +completely free and pure was strong enough to guide this will to all that is +good and beneficial. Had it been combined with a narrow intelligence, a will +with such a tyrannical and boundless desire might have become fatal; in any +case, an exit into the open had to be found for it as quickly as possible, +whereby it could rush into pure air and sunshine. Lofty aspirations, which +continually meet with failure, ultimately turn to evil. The inadequacy of means +for obtaining success may, in certain circumstances, be the result of an +inexorable fate, and not necessarily of a lack of strength; but he who under +such circumstances cannot abandon his aspirations, despite the inadequacy of +his means, will only become embittered, and consequently irritable and +intolerant. He may possibly seek the cause of his failure in other people; he +may even, in a fit of passion, hold the whole world guilty; or he may turn +defiantly down secret byways and secluded lanes, or resort to violence. In this +way, noble natures, on their road to the most high, may turn savage. Even among +those who seek but their own personal moral purity, among monks and anchorites, +men are to be found who, undermined and devoured by failure, have become +barbarous and hopelessly morbid. There was a spirit full of love and calm +belief, full of goodness and infinite tenderness, hostile to all violence and +self-deterioration, and abhorring the sight of a soul in bondage. And it was +this spirit which manifested itself to Wagner. It hovered over him as a +consoling angel, it covered him with its wings, and showed him the true path. +At this stage we bring the other side of Wagner's nature into view: but how +shall we describe this other side? +</p> + +<p> +The characters an artist creates are not himself, but the succession of these +characters, to which it is clear he is greatly attached, must at all events +reveal something of his nature. Now try and recall Rienzi, the Flying Dutchman +and Senta, Tannhauser and Elizabeth, Lohengrin and Elsa, Tristan and Marke, +Hans Sachs, Woden and Brunhilda,—all these characters are correlated by a +secret current of ennobling and broadening morality which flows through them +and becomes ever purer and clearer as it progresses. And at this point we enter +with respectful reserve into the presence of the most hidden development in +Wagner's own soul. In what other artist do we meet with the like of this, in +the same proportion? Schiller's characters, from the Robbers to Wallenstein and +Tell, do indeed pursue an ennobling course, and likewise reveal something of +their author's development; but in Wagner the standard is higher and the +distance covered is much greater. In the Nibelungen Ring, for instance, where +Brunhilda is awakened by Siegfried, I perceive the most moral music I have ever +heard. Here Wagner attains to such a high level of sacred feeling that our mind +unconsciously wanders to the glistening ice-and snow-peaks of the Alps, to find +a likeness there;— so pure, isolated, inaccessible, chaste, and bathed in +love-beams does Nature here display herself, that clouds and +tempests—yea, and even the sublime itself—seem to lie beneath her. +Now, looking down from this height upon Tannhauser and the Flying Dutchman, we +begin to perceive how the man in Wagner was evolved: how restlessly and darkly +he began; how tempestuously he strove to gratify his desires, to acquire power +and to taste those rapturous delights from which he often fled in disgust; how +he wished to throw off a yoke, to forget, to be negative, and to renounce +everything. The whole torrent plunged, now into this valley, now into that, and +flooded the most secluded chinks and crannies. In the night of these +semi-subterranean convulsions a star appeared and glowed high above him with +melancholy vehemence; as soon as he recognised it, he named it +<i>Fidelity—unselfish fidelity</i>. Why did this star seem to him the +brightest and purest of all? What secret meaning had the word "fidelity" to his +whole being? For he has graven its image and problems upon all his thoughts and +compositions. His works contain almost a complete series of the rarest and most +beautiful examples of fidelity: that of brother to sister, of friend to friend, +of servant to master; of Elizabeth to Tannhauser, of Senta to the Dutchman, of +Elsa to Lohengrin, of Isolde, Kurvenal, and Marke to Tristan, of Brunhilda to +the most secret vows of Woden—and many others. It is Wagner's most +personal and most individual experience, which he reveres like a religious +mystery, and which he calls Fidelity; he never wearies of breathing it into +hundreds of different characters, and of endowing it with the sublimest that in +him lies, so overflowing is his gratitude. It is, in short, the recognition of +the fact that the two sides of his nature remained faithful to each other, that +out of free and unselfish love, the creative, ingenuous, and brilliant side +kept loyally abreast of the dark, the intractable, and the tyrannical side. +</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p> +The relation of the two constituent forces to each other, and the yielding of +the one to the other, was the great requisite by which alone he could remain +wholly and truly himself. At the same time, this was the only thing he could +not control, and over which he could only keep a watch, while the temptations +to infidelity and its threatening dangers beset him more and more. The +uncertainty derived therefrom is an overflowing source of suffering for those +in process of development. Each of his instincts made constant efforts to +attain to unmeasured heights, and each of the capacities he possessed for +enjoying life seemed to long to tear itself away from its companions in order +to seek satisfaction alone; the greater their exuberance the more terrific was +the tumult, and the more bitter the competition between them. In addition, +accident and life fired the desire for power and splendour in him; but he was +more often tormented by the cruel necessity of having to live at all, while all +around him lay obstacles and snares. How is it possible for any one to remain +faithful here, to be completely steadfast? This doubt often depressed him, and +he expresses it, as an artist expressed his doubt, in artistic forms. +Elizabeth, for instance, can only suffer, pray, and die; she saves the fickle +and intemperate man by her loyalty, though not for this life. In the path of +every true artist, whose lot is cast in these modern days, despair and danger +are strewn. He has many means whereby he can attain to honour and might; peace +and plenty persistently offer themselves to him, but only in that form +recognised by the modern man, which to the straightforward artist is no better +than choke-damp. In this temptation, and in the act of resisting it, lie the +dangers that threaten him—dangers arising from his disgust at the means +modernity offers him of acquiring pleasure and esteem, and from the indignation +provoked by the selfish ease of modern society. Imagine Wagner's filling an +official position, as for instance that of bandmaster at public and court +theatres, both of which positions he has held: think how he, a serious artist, +must have struggled in order to enforce seriousness in those very places which, +to meet the demands of modern conventions, are designed with almost systematic +frivolity to appeal only to the frivolous. Think how he must have partially +succeeded, though only to fail on the whole. How constantly disgust must have +been at his heels despite his repeated attempts to flee it, how he failed to +find the haven to which he might have repaired, and how he had ever to return +to the Bohemians and outlaws of our society, as one of them. If he himself +broke loose from any post or position, he rarely found a better one in its +stead, while more than once distress was all that his unrest brought him. Thus +Wagner changed his associates, his dwelling-place and country, and when we come +to comprehend the nature of the circles into which he gravitated, we can hardly +realise how he was able to tolerate them for any length of time. The greater +half of his past seems to be shrouded in heavy mist; for a long time he appears +to have had no general hopes, but only hopes for the morrow, and thus, although +he reposed no faith in the future, he was not driven to despair. He must have +felt like a nocturnal traveller, broken with fatigue, exasperated from want of +sleep, and tramping wearily along beneath a heavy burden, who, far from fearing +the sudden approach of death, rather longs for it as something exquisitely +charming. His burden, the road and the night—all would disappear! The +thought was a temptation to him. Again and again, buoyed up by his temporary +hopes, he plunged anew into the turmoil of life, and left all apparatus behind +him. But his method of doing this, his lack of moderation in the doing, +betrayed what a feeble hold his hopes had upon him; how they were only +stimulants to which he had recourse in an extremity. The conflict between his +aspirations and his partial or total inability to realise them, tormented him +like a thorn in the flesh. Infuriated by constant privations, his imagination +lapsed into the dissipated, whenever the state of want was momentarily +relieved. Life grew ever more and more complicated for him; but the means and +artifices that he discovered in his art as a dramatist became evermore +resourceful and daring. Albeit, these were little more than palpable dramatic +makeshifts and expedients, which deceived, and were invented, only for the +moment. In a flash such means occurred to his mind and were used up. Examined +closely and without prepossession, Wagner's life, to recall one of +Schopenhauer's expressions, might be said to consist largely of comedy, not to +mention burlesque. And what the artist's feelings must have been, conscious as +he was, during whole periods of his life, of this undignified element in +it,—he who more than any one else, perhaps, breathed freely only in +sublime and more than sublime spheres,— the thinker alone can form any +idea. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of this mode of life, a detailed description of which is necessary +in order to inspire the amount of pity, awe, and admiration which are its due, +he developed a <i>talent for acquiring knowledge,</i> which even in a +German—a son of the nation learned above all others—was really +extraordinary. And with this talent yet another danger threatened +Wagner—a danger more formidable than that involved in a life which was +apparently without either a stay or a rule, borne hither and thither by +disturbing illusions. From a novice trying his strength, Wagner became a +thorough master of music and of the theatre, as also a prolific inventor in the +preliminary technical conditions for the execution of art. No one will any +longer deny him the glory of having given us the supreme model for lofty +artistic execution on a large scale. But he became more than this, and in order +so to develop, he, no less than any one else in like circumstances, had to +reach the highest degree of culture by virtue of his studies. And wonderfully +he achieved this end! It is delightful to follow his progress. From all sides +material seemed to come unto him and into him, and the larger and heavier the +resulting structure became, the more rigid was the arch of the ruling and +ordering thought supporting it. And yet access to the sciences and arts has +seldom been made more difficult for any man than for Wagner; so much so that he +had almost to break his own road through to them. The reviver of the simple +drama, the discoverer of the position due to art in true human society, the +poetic interpreter of bygone views of life, the philosopher, the historian, the +aesthete and the critic, the master of languages, the mythologist and the myth +poet, who was the first to include all these wonderful and beautiful products +of primitive times in a single Ring, upon which he engraved the runic +characters of his thoughts— what a wealth of knowledge must Wagner have +accumulated and commanded, in order to have become all that! And yet this mass +of material was just as powerless to impede the action of his will as a matter +of detail—however attractive—was to draw his purpose from its path. +For the exceptional character of such conduct to be appreciated fully, it +should be compared with that of Goethe,— he who, as a student and as a +sage, resembled nothing so much as a huge river-basin, which does not pour all +its water into the sea, but spends as much of it on its way there, and at its +various twists and turns, as it ultimately disgorges at its mouth. True, a +nature like Goethe's not only has, but also engenders, more pleasure than any +other; there is more mildness and noble profligacy in it; whereas the tenor and +tempo of Wagner's power at times provoke both fear and flight. But let him fear +who will, we shall only be the more courageous, in that we shall be permitted +to come face to face with a hero who, in regard to modern culture, "has never +learned the meaning of fear." +</p> + +<p> +But neither has he learned to look for repose in history and philosophy, nor to +derive those subtle influences from their study which tend to paralyse action +or to soften a man unduly. Neither the creative nor the militant artist in him +was ever diverted from his purpose by learning and culture. The moment his +constructive powers direct him, history becomes yielding clay in his hands. His +attitude towards it then differs from that of every scholar, and more nearly +resembles the relation of the ancient Greek to his myths; that is to say, his +subject is something he may fashion, and about which he may write verses. He +will naturally do this with love and a certain becoming reverence, but with the +sovereign right of the creator notwithstanding. And precisely because history +is more supple and more variable than a dream to him, he can invest the most +individual case with the characteristics of a whole age, and thus attain to a +vividness of narrative of which historians are quite incapable. In what work of +art, of any kind, has the body and soul of the Middle Ages ever been so +thoroughly depicted as in Lohengrin? And will not the Meistersingers continue +to acquaint men, even in the remotest ages to come, with the nature of +Germany's soul? Will they not do more than acquaint men of it? Will they not +represent its very ripest fruit—the fruit of that spirit which ever +wishes to reform and not to overthrow, and which, despite the broad couch of +comfort on which it lies, has not forgotten how to endure the noblest +discomfort when a worthy and novel deed has to be accomplished? +</p> + +<p> +And it is just to this kind of discomfort that Wagner always felt himself drawn +by his study of history and philosophy: in them he not only found arms and +coats of mail, but what he felt in their presence above all was the inspiring +breath which is wafted from the graves of all great fighters, sufferers, and +thinkers. Nothing distinguishes a man more from the general pattern of the age +than the use he makes of history and philosophy. According to present views, +the former seems to have been allotted the duty of giving modern man +breathing-time, in the midst of his panting and strenuous scurry towards his +goal, so that he may, for a space, imagine he has slipped his leash. What +Montaigne was as an individual amid the turmoil of the Reformation—that +is to say, a creature inwardly coming to peace with himself, serenely secluded +in himself and taking breath, as his best reader, Shakespeare, understood him, +—this is what history is to the modern spirit today. The fact that the +Germans, for a whole century, have devoted themselves more particularly to the +study of history, only tends to prove that they are the stemming, retarding, +and becalming force in the activity of modern society—a circumstance +which some, of course, will place to their credit. On the whole, however, it is +a dangerous symptom when the mind of a nation turns with preference to the +study of the past. It is a sign of flagging strength, of decline and +degeneration; it denotes that its people are perilously near to falling victims +to the first fever that may happen to be rife —the political fever among +others. Now, in the history of modern thought, our scholars are an example of +this condition of weakness as opposed to all reformative and revolutionary +activity. The mission they have chosen is not of the noblest; they have rather +been content to secure smug happiness for their kind, and little more. Every +independent and manly step leaves them halting in the background, although it +by no means outstrips history. For the latter is possessed of vastly different +powers, which only natures like Wagner have any notion of; but it requires to +be written in a much more earnest and severe spirit, by much more vigorous +students, and with much less optimism than has been the case hitherto. In fact, +it requires to be treated quite differently from the way German scholars have +treated it until now. In all their works there is a continual desire to +embellish, to submit and to be content, while the course of events invariably +seems to have their approbation. It is rather the exception for one of them to +imply that he is satisfied only because things might have turned out worse; for +most of them believe, almost as a matter of course, that everything has been +for the best simply because it has only happened once. Were history not always +a disguised Christian theodicy, were it written with more justice and fervent +feeling, it would be the very last thing on earth to be made to serve the +purpose it now serves, namely, that of an opiate against everything subversive +and novel. And philosophy is in the same plight: all that the majority demand +of it is, that it may teach them to understand approximate facts—very +approximate facts—in order that they may then become adapted to them. And +even its noblest exponents press its soporific and comforting powers so +strongly to the fore, that all lovers of sleep and of loafing must think that +their aim and the aim of philosophy are one. For my part, the most important +question philosophy has to decide seems to be, how far things have acquired an +unalterable stamp and form, and, once this question has been answered, I think +it the duty of philosophy unhesitatingly and courageously to proceed with the +task of <i>improving that part of the world which has been recognised as still +susceptible to change.</i> But genuine philosophers do, as a matter of fact, +teach this doctrine themselves, inasmuch as they work at endeavouring to alter +the very changeable views of men, and do not keep their opinions to themselves. +Genuine disciples of genuine philosophies also teach this doctrine; for, like +Wagner, they understand the art of deriving a more decisive and inflexible will +from their master's teaching, rather than an opiate or a sleeping draught. +Wagner is most philosophical where he is most powerfully active and heroic. It +was as a philosopher that he went, not only through the fire of various +philosophical systems without fear, but also through the vapours of science and +scholarship, while remaining ever true to his highest self. And it was this +highest self which exacted <i>from his versatile spirit works as complete as +his were,</i> which bade him suffer and learn, that he might accomplish such +works. +</p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p> +The history of the development of culture since the time of the Greeks is short +enough, when we take into consideration the actual ground it covers, and ignore +the periods during which man stood still, went backwards, hesitated or strayed. +The Hellenising of the world—and to make this possible, the Orientalising +of Hellenism—that double mission of Alexander the Great, still remains +the most important event: the old question whether a foreign civilisation may +be transplanted is still the problem that the peoples of modern times are +vainly endeavouring to solve. The rhythmic play of those two factors against +each other is the force that has determined the course of history heretofore. +Thus Christianity appears, for instance, as a product of Oriental antiquity, +which was thought out and pursued to its ultimate conclusions by men, with +almost intemperate thoroughness. As its influence began to decay, the power of +Hellenic culture was revived, and we are now experiencing phenomena so strange +that they would hang in the air as unsolved problems, if it were not possible, +by spanning an enormous gulf of time, to show their relation to analogous +phenomena in Hellenistic culture. Thus, between Kant and the Eleatics, +Schopenhauer and Empedocles, AEschylus and Wagner, there is so much +relationship, so many things in common, that one is vividly impressed with the +very relative nature of all notions of time. It would even seem as if a whole +diversity of things were really all of a piece, and that time is only a cloud +which makes it hard for our eyes to perceive the oneness of them. In the +history of the exact sciences we are perhaps most impressed by the close bond +uniting us with the days of Alexander and ancient Greece. The pendulum of +history seems merely to have swung back to that point from which it started +when it plunged forth into unknown and mysterious distance. The picture +represented by our own times is by no means a new one: to the student of +history it must always seem as though he were merely in the presence of an old +familiar face, the features of which he recognises. In our time the spirit of +Greek culture is scattered broadcast. While forces of all kinds are pressing +one upon the other, and the fruits of modern art and science are offering +themselves as a means of exchange, the pale outline of Hellenism is beginning +to dawn faintly in the distance. The earth which, up to the present, has been +more than adequately Orientalised, begins to yearn once more for Hellenism. He +who wishes to help her in this respect will certainly need to be gifted for +speedy action and to have wings on his heels, in order to synthetise the +multitudinous and still undiscovered facts of science and the many conflicting +divisions of talent so as to reconnoitre and rule the whole enormous field. It +is now necessary that a generation of <i>anti-Alexanders</i> should arise, +endowed with the supreme strength necessary for gathering up, binding together, +and joining the individual threads of the fabric, so as to prevent their being +scattered to the four winds. The object is not to cut the Gordian knot of Greek +culture after the manner adopted by Alexander, and then to leave its frayed +ends fluttering in all directions; it is rather <i>to bind it after it has been +loosed.</i> That is our task to-day. In the person of Wagner I recognise one of +these anti-Alexanders: he rivets and locks together all that is isolated, weak, +or in any way defective; if I may be allowed to use a medical expression, he +has an <i>astringent power</i>. And in this respect he is one of the greatest +civilising forces of his age. He dominates art, religion, and folklore, yet he +is the reverse of a polyhistor or of a mere collecting and classifying spirit; +for he constructs with the collected material, and breathes life into it, and +is a <i>Simplifier of the Universe.</i> We must not be led away from this idea +by comparing the general mission which his genius imposed upon him with the +much narrower and more immediate one which we are at present in the habit of +associating with the name of Wagner. He is expected to effect a reform in the +theatre world; but even supposing he should succeed in doing this, what would +then have been done towards the accomplishment of that higher, more distant +mission? +</p> + +<p> +But even with this lesser theatrical reform, modern man would also be altered +and reformed; for everything is so intimately related in this world, that he +who removes even so small a thing as a rivet from the framework shatters and +destroys the whole edifice. And what we here assert, with perhaps seeming +exaggeration, of Wagner's activity would hold equally good of any other genuine +reform. It is quite impossible to reinstate the art of drama in its purest and +highest form without effecting changes everywhere in the customs of the people, +in the State, in education, and in social intercourse. When love and justice +have become powerful in one department of life, namely in art, they must, in +accordance with the law of their inner being, spread their influence around +them, and can no more return to the stiff stillness of their former pupal +condition. In order even to realise how far the attitude of the arts towards +life is a sign of their decline, and how far our theatres are a disgrace to +those who build and visit them, everything must be learnt over again, and that +which is usual and commonplace should be regarded as something unusual and +complicated. An extraordinary lack of clear judgment, a badly-concealed lust of +pleasure, of entertainment at any cost, learned scruples, assumed airs of +importance, and trifling with the seriousness of art on the part of those who +represent it; brutality of appetite and money-grubbing on the part of +promoters; the empty-mindedness and thoughtlessness of society, which only +thinks of the people in so far as these serve or thwart its purpose, and which +attends theatres and concerts without giving a thought to its duties,—all +these things constitute the stifling and deleterious atmosphere of our modern +art conditions: when, however, people like our men of culture have grown +accustomed to it, they imagine that it is a condition of their healthy +existence, and would immediately feel unwell if, for any reason, they were +compelled to dispense with it for a while. In point of fact, there is but one +speedy way of convincing oneself of the vulgarity, weirdness, and confusion of +our theatrical institutions, and that is to compare them with those which once +flourished in ancient Greece. If we knew nothing about the Greeks, it would +perhaps be impossible to assail our present conditions at all, and objections +made on the large scale conceived for the first time by Wagner would have been +regarded as the dreams of people who could only be at home in outlandish +places. "For men as we now find them," people would have retorted, "art of this +modern kind answers the purpose and is fitting— and men have never been +different." But they have been very different, and even now there are men who +are far from satisfied with the existing state of affairs—the fact of +Bayreuth alone demonstrates this point. Here you will find prepared and +initiated spectators, and the emotion of men conscious of being at the very +zenith of their happiness, who concentrate their whole being on that happiness +in order to strengthen themselves for a higher and more far-reaching purpose. +Here you will find the most noble self-abnegation on the part of the artist, +and the finest of all spectacles —that of a triumphant creator of works +which are in themselves an overflowing treasury of artistic triumphs. Does it +not seem almost like a fairy tale, to be able to come face to face with such a +personality? Must not they who take any part whatsoever, active or passive, in +the proceedings at Bayreuth, already feel altered and rejuvenated, and ready to +introduce reforms and to effect renovations in other spheres of life? Has not a +haven been found for all wanderers on high and desert seas, and has not peace +settled over the face of the waters? Must not he who leaves these spheres of +ruling profundity and loneliness for the very differently ordered world with +its plains and lower levels, cry continually like Isolde: "Oh, how could I bear +it? How can I still bear it?" And should he be unable to endure his joy and his +sorrow, or to keep them egotistically to himself, he will avail himself from +that time forward of every opportunity of making them known to all. "Where are +they who are suffering under the yoke of modern institutions?" he will inquire. +"Where are my natural allies, with whom I may struggle against the ever waxing +and ever more oppressive pretensions of modern erudition? For at present, at +least, we have but one enemy—at present!—and it is that band of +aesthetes, to whom the word Bayreuth means the completest rout—they have +taken no share in the arrangements, they were rather indignant at the whole +movement, or else availed themselves effectively of the deaf-ear policy, which +has now become the trusty weapon of all very superior opposition. But this +proves that their animosity and knavery were ineffectual in destroying Wagner's +spirit or in hindering the accomplishment of his plans; it proves even more, +for it betrays their weakness and the fact that all those who are at present in +possession of power will not be able to withstand many more attacks. The time +is at hand for those who would conquer and triumph; the vastest empires lie at +their mercy, a note of interrogation hangs to the name of all present +possessors of power, so far as possession may be said to exist in this respect. +Thus educational institutions are said to be decaying, and everywhere +individuals are to be found who have secretly deserted them. If only it were +possible to invite those to open rebellion and public utterances, who even now +are thoroughly dissatisfied with the state of affairs in this quarter! If only +it were possible to deprive them of their faint heart and lukewarmness! I am +convinced that the whole spirit of modern culture would receive its deadliest +blow if the tacit support which these natures give it could in any way be +cancelled. Among scholars, only those would remain loyal to the old order of +things who had been infected with the political mania or who were literary +hacks in any form whatever. The repulsive organisation which derives its +strength from the violence and injustice upon which it relies—that is to +say, from the State and Society—and which sees its advantage in making +the latter ever more evil and unscrupulous,—this structure which without +such support would be something feeble and effete, only needs to be despised in +order to perish. He who is struggling to spread justice and love among mankind +must regard this organisation as the least significant of the obstacles in his +way; for he will only encounter his real opponents once he has successfully +stormed and conquered modern culture, which is nothing more than their +outworks. +</p> + +<p> +For us, Bayreuth is the consecration of the dawn of the combat. No greater +injustice could be done to us than to suppose that we are concerned with art +alone, as though it were merely a means of healing or stupefying us, which we +make use of in order to rid our consciousness of all the misery that still +remains in our midst. In the image of this tragic art work at Bayreuth, we see, +rather, the struggle of individuals against everything which seems to oppose +them with invincible necessity, with power, law, tradition, conduct, and the +whole order of things established. Individuals cannot choose a better life than +that of holding themselves ready to sacrifice themselves and to die in their +fight for love and justice. The gaze which the mysterious eye of tragedy +vouchsafes us neither lulls nor paralyses. Nevertheless, it demands silence of +us as long as it keeps us in view; for art does not serve the purposes of war, +but is merely with us to improve our hours of respite, before and during the +course of the contest,—to improve those few moments when, looking back, +yet dreaming of the future, we seem to understand the symbolical, and are +carried away into a refreshing reverie when fatigue overtakes us. Day and +battle dawn together, the sacred shadows vanish, and Art is once more far away +from us; but the comfort she dispenses is with men from the earliest hour of +day, and never leaves them. Wherever he turns, the individual realises only too +clearly his own shortcomings, his insufficiency and his incompetence; what +courage would he have left were he not previously rendered impersonal by this +consecration! The greatest of all torments harassing him, the conflicting +beliefs and opinions among men, the unreliability of these beliefs and +opinions, and the unequal character of men's abilities—all these things +make him hanker after art. We cannot be happy so long as everything about us +suffers and causes suffering; we cannot be moral so long as the course of human +events is determined by violence, treachery, and injustice; we cannot even be +wise, so long as the whole of mankind does not compete for wisdom, and does not +lead the individual to the most sober and reasonable form of life and +knowledge. How, then, would it be possible to endure this feeling of threefold +insufficiency if one were not able to recognise something sublime and valuable +in one's struggles, strivings, and defeats, if one did not learn from tragedy +how to delight in the rhythm of the great passions, and in their victim? Art is +certainly no teacher or educator of practical conduct: the artist is never in +this sense an instructor or adviser; the things after which a tragic hero +strives are not necessarily worth striving after. As in a dream so in art, the +valuation of things only holds good while we are under its spell. What we, for +the time being, regard as so worthy of effort, and what makes us sympathise +with the tragic hero when he prefers death to renouncing the object of his +desire, this can seldom retain the same value and energy when transferred to +everyday life: that is why art is the business of the man who is recreating +himself. The strife it reveals to us is a simplification of life's struggle; +its problems are abbreviations of the infinitely complicated phenomena of man's +actions and volitions. But from this very fact—that it is the reflection, +so to speak, of a simpler world, a more rapid solution of the riddle of +life—art derives its greatness and indispensability. No one who suffers +from life can do without this reflection, just as no one can exist without +sleep. The more difficult the science of natural laws becomes, the more +fervently we yearn for the image of this simplification, if only for an +instant; and the greater becomes the tension between each man's general +knowledge of things and his moral and spiritual faculties. Art is with us <i>to +prevent the bow from snapping</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The individual must be consecrated to something impersonal—that is the +aim of tragedy: he must forget the terrible anxiety which death and time tend +to create in him; for at any moment of his life, at any fraction of time in the +whole of his span of years, something sacred may cross his path which will +amply compensate him for all his struggles and privations. This means <i>having +a sense for the tragic</i>. And if all mankind must perish some day—and +who could question this! —it has been given its highest aim for the +future, namely, to increase and to live in such unity that it may confront its +final extermination as a whole, with one spirit-with a common sense of the +tragic: in this one aim all the ennobling influences of man lie locked; its +complete repudiation by humanity would be the saddest blow which the soul of +the philanthropist could receive. That is how I feel in the matter! There is +but one hope and guarantee for the future of man, and that is <i>that his sense +for the tragic may not die out.</i> If he ever completely lost it, an agonised +cry, the like of which has never been heard, would have to be raised all over +the world; for there is no more blessed joy than that which consists in knowing +what we know—how tragic thought was born again on earth. For this joy is +thoroughly impersonal and general: it is the wild rejoicing of humanity, anent +the hidden relationship and progress of all that is human. +</p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p> +Wagner concentrated upon life, past and present, the light of an intelligence +strong enough to embrace the most distant regions in its rays. That is why he +is a simplifier of the universe; for the simplification of the universe is only +possible to him whose eye has been able to master the immensity and wildness of +an apparent chaos, and to relate and unite those things which before had lain +hopelessly asunder. Wagner did this by discovering a connection between two +objects which seemed to exist apart from each other as though in separate +spheres—that between music and life, and similarly between music and the +drama. Not that he invented or was the first to create this relationship, for +they must always have existed and have been noticeable to all; but, as is +usually the case with a great problem, it is like a precious stone which +thousands stumble over before one finally picks it up. Wagner asked himself the +meaning of the fact that an art such as music should have become so very +important a feature of the lives of modern men. It is not necessary to think +meanly of life in order to suspect a riddle behind this question. On the +contrary, when all the great forces of existence are duly considered, and +struggling life is regarded as striving mightily after conscious freedom and +independence of thought, only then does music seem to be a riddle in this +world. Should one not answer: Music could not have been born in our time? What +then does its presence amongst us signify? An accident? A single great artist +might certainly be an accident, but the appearance of a whole group of them, +such as the history of modern music has to show, a group only once before +equalled on earth, that is to say in the time of the Greeks,—a +circumstance of this sort leads one to think that perhaps necessity rather than +accident is at the root of the whole phenomenon. The meaning of this necessity +is the riddle which Wagner answers. +</p> + +<p> +He was the first to recognise an evil which is as widespread as civilisation +itself among men; language is everywhere diseased, and the burden of this +terrible disease weighs heavily upon the whole of man's development. Inasmuch +as language has retreated ever more and more from its true province—the +expression of strong feelings, which it was once able to convey in all their +simplicity—and has always had to strain after the practically impossible +achievement of communicating the reverse of feeling, that is to say thought, +its strength has become so exhausted by this excessive extension of its duties +during the comparatively short period of modern civilisation, that it is no +longer able to perform even that function which alone justifies its existence, +to wit, the assisting of those who suffer, in communicating with each other +concerning the sorrows of existence. Man can no longer make his misery known +unto others by means of language; hence he cannot really express himself any +longer. And under these conditions, which are only vaguely felt at present, +language has gradually become a force in itself which with spectral arms +coerces and drives humanity where it least wants to go. As soon as they would +fain understand one another and unite for a common cause, the craziness of +general concepts, and even of the ring of modern words, lays hold of them. The +result of this inability to communicate with one another is that every product +of their co-operative action bears the stamp of discord, not only because it +fails to meet their real needs, but because of the very emptiness of those +all-powerful words and notions already mentioned. To the misery already at +hand, man thus adds the curse of convention—that is to say, the agreement +between words and actions without an agreement between the feelings. Just as, +during the decline of every art, a point is reached when the morbid +accumulation of its means and forms attains to such tyrannical proportions that +it oppresses the tender souls of artists and converts these into slaves, so +now, in the period of the decline of language, men have become the slaves of +words. Under this yoke no one is able to show himself as he is, or to express +himself artlessly, while only few are able to preserve their individuality in +their fight against a culture which thinks to manifest its success, not by the +fact that it approaches definite sensations and desires with the view of +educating them, but by the fact that it involves the individual in the snare of +"definite notions," and teaches him to think correctly: as if there were any +value in making a correctly thinking and reasoning being out of man, before one +has succeeded in making him a creature that feels correctly. If now the strains +of our German masters' music burst upon a mass of mankind sick to this extent, +what is really the meaning of these strains? Only <i>correct feeling,</i> the +enemy of all convention, of all artificial estrangement and misunderstandings +between man and man: this music signifies a return to nature, and at the same +time a purification and remodelling of it; for the need of such a return took +shape in the souls of the most loving of men, and, <i>through their art, nature +transformed into love makes its voice heard</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Let us regard this as <i>one</i> of Wagner's answers to the question, What does +music mean in our time? for he has a second. The relation between music and +life is not merely that existing between one kind of language and another; it +is, besides, the relation between the perfect world of sound and that of sight. +Regarded merely as a spectacle, and compared with other and earlier +manifestations of human life, the existence of modern man is characterised by +indescribable indigence and exhaustion, despite the unspeakable garishness at +which only the superficial observer rejoices. If one examines a little more +closely the impression which this vehement and kaleidoscopic play of colours +makes upon one, does not the whole seem to blaze with the shimmer and sparkle +of innumerable little stones borrowed from former civilisations? Is not +everything one sees merely a complex of inharmonious bombast, aped +gesticulations, arrogant superficiality?—a ragged suit of motley for the +naked and the shivering? A seeming dance of joy enjoined upon a sufferer? Airs +of overbearing pride assumed by one who is sick to the backbone? And the whole +moving with such rapidity and confusion that it is disguised and masked— +sordid impotence, devouring dissension, assiduous ennui, dishonest distress! +The appearance of present-day humanity is all appearance, and nothing else: in +what he now represents man himself has become obscured and concealed; and the +vestiges of the creative faculty in art, which still cling to such countries as +France and Italy, are all concentrated upon this one task of concealing. +Wherever form is still in demand in society, conversation, literary style, or +the relations between governments, men have unconsciously grown to believe that +it is adequately met by a kind of agreeable dissimulation, quite the reverse of +genuine form conceived as a necessary relation between the proportions of a +figure, having no concern whatever with the notions "agreeable" or +"disagreeable," simply because it is necessary and not optional. But even where +form is not openly exacted by civilised people, there is no greater evidence of +this requisite relation of proportions; a striving after the agreeable +dissimulation, already referred to, is on the contrary noticeable, though it is +never so successful even if it be more eager than in the first instance. How +far this dissimulation is <i>agreeable</i> at times, and why it must please +everybody to see how modern men at least endeavour to dissemble, every one is +in a position to judge, according to, the extent to which he himself may happen +to be modern. "Only galley slaves know each other," says Tasso, "and if we +<i>mistake</i> others, it is only out of courtesy, and with the hope that they, +in their turn, should mistake us." +</p> + +<p> +Now, in this world of forms and intentional misunderstandings, what purpose is +served by the appearance of souls overflowing with music? They pursue the +course of grand and unrestrained rhythm with noble candour—with a passion +more than personal; they glow with the mighty and peaceful fire of music, which +wells up to the light of day from their unexhausted depths—and all this +to what purpose? +</p> + +<p> +By means of these souls music gives expression to the longing that it feels for +the company of its natural ally, <i>gymnastics</i>—that is to say, its +necessary form in the order of visible phenomena. In its search and craving for +this ally, it becomes the arbiter of the whole visible world and the world of +mere lying appearance of the present day. This is Wagner's second answer to the +question, What is the meaning of music in our times? "Help me," he cries to all +who have ears to hear, "help me to discover that culture of which my music, as +the rediscovered language of correct feeling, seems to foretell the existence. +Bear in mind that the soul of music now wishes to acquire a body, that, by +means of you all, it would find its way to visibleness in movements, deeds, +institutions, and customs!" There are some men who understand this summons, and +their number will increase; they have also understood, for the first time, what +it means to found the State upon music. It is something that the ancient +Hellenes not only understood but actually insisted upon; and these enlightened +creatures would just as soon have sentenced the modern State to death as modern +men now condemn the Church. The road to such a new though not unprecedented +goal would lead to this: that we should be compelled to acknowledge where the +worst faults of our educational system lie, and why it has failed hitherto to +elevate us out of barbarity: in reality, it lacks the stirring and creative +soul of music; its requirements and arrangements are moreover the product of a +period in which the music, to which We seem to attach so much importance, had +not yet been born. Our education is the most antiquated factor of our present +conditions, and it is so more precisely in regard to the one new educational +force by which it makes men of to-day in advance of those of bygone centuries, +or by which it would make them in advance of their remote ancestors, provided +only they did not persist so rashly in hurrying forward in meek response to the +scourge of the moment. Through not having allowed the soul of music to lodge +within them, they have no notion of gymnastics in the Greek and Wagnerian +sense; and that is why their creative artists are condemned to despair, as long +as they wish to dispense with music as a guide in a new world of visible +phenomena. Talent may develop as much as may be desired: it either comes too +late or too soon, and at all events out of season; for it is in the main +superfluous and abortive, just as even the most perfect and the highest +products of earlier times which serve modern artists as models are superfluous +and abortive, and add not a stone to the edifice already begun. If their +innermost consciousness can perceive no new forms, but only the old ones +belonging to the past, they may certainly achieve something for history, but +not for life; for they are already dead before having expired. He, however, who +feels genuine and fruitful life in him, which at present can only be described +by the one term "Music," could he allow himself to be deceived for one moment +into nursing solid hopes by this something which exhausts all its energy in +producing figures, forms, and styles? He stands above all such vanities, and as +little expects to meet with artistic wonders outside his ideal world of sound +as with great writers bred on our effete and discoloured language. Rather than +lend an ear to illusive consolations, he prefers to turn his unsatisfied gaze +stoically upon our modern world, and if his heart be not warm enough to feel +pity, let it at least feel bitterness and hate! It were better for him to show +anger and scorn than to take cover in spurious contentment or steadily to drug +himself, as our "friends of art" are wont to do. But if he can do more than +condemn and despise, if he is capable of loving, sympathising, and assisting in +the general work of construction, he must still condemn, notwithstanding, in +order to prepare the road for his willing soul. In order that music may one day +exhort many men to greater piety and make them privy to her highest aims, an +end must first be made to the whole of the pleasure-seeking relations which men +now enjoy with such a sacred art. Behind all our artistic pastimes— +theatres, museums, concerts, and the like—that aforementioned "friend of +art" is to be found, and he it is who must be suppressed: the favour he now +finds at the hands of the State must be changed into oppression; public +opinion, which lays such particular stress upon the training of this love of +art, must be routed by better judgment. Meanwhile we must reckon the +<i>declared enemy of art</i> as our best and most useful ally; for the object +of his animosity is precisely art as understood by the "friend of +art,"—he knows of no other kind! Let him be allowed to call our "friend +of art" to account for the nonsensical waste of money occasioned by the +building of his theatres and public monuments, the engagement of his celebrated +singers and actors, and the support of his utterly useless schools of art and +picture-galleries—to say nothing of all the energy, time, and money which +every family squanders in pretended "artistic interests." Neither hunger nor +satiety is to be noticed here, but a dead-and-alive game is played—with +the semblance of each, a game invented by the idle desire to produce an effect +and to deceive others. Or, worse still, art is taken more or less seriously, +and then it is itself expected to provoke a kind of hunger and craving, and to +fulfil its mission in this artificially induced excitement. It is as if people +were afraid of sinking beneath the weight of their loathing and dulness, and +invoked every conceivable evil spirit to scare them and drive them about like +wild cattle. Men hanker after pain, anger, hate, the flush of passion, sudden +flight, and breathless suspense, and they appeal to the artist as the conjurer +of this demoniacal host. In the spiritual economy of our cultured classes art +has become a spurious or ignominious and undignified need—a nonentity or +a something evil. The superior and more uncommon artist must be in the throes +of a bewildering nightmare in order to be blind to all this, and like a ghost, +diffidently and in a quavering voice, he goes on repeating beautiful words +which he declares descend to him from higher spheres, but whose sound he can +hear only very indistinctly. The artist who happens to be moulded according to +the modern pattern, however, regards the dreamy gropings and hesitating speech +of his nobler colleague with contempt, and leads forth the whole brawling mob +of assembled passions on a leash in order to let them loose upon modern men as +he may think fit. For these modern creatures wish rather to be hunted down, +wounded, and torn to shreds, than to live alone with themselves in solitary +calm. Alone with oneself!—this thought terrifies the modern soul; it is +his one anxiety, his one ghastly fear. +</p> + +<p> +When I watch the throngs that move and linger about the streets of a very +populous town, and notice no other expression in their faces than one of hunted +stupor, I can never help commenting to myself upon the misery of their +condition. For them all, art exists only that they may be still more wretched, +torpid, insensible, or even more flurried and covetous. For <i>incorrect +feeling</i> governs and drills them unremittingly, and does not even give them +time to become aware of their misery. Should they wish to speak, convention +whispers their cue to them, and this makes them forget what they originally +intended to say; should they desire to understand one another, their +comprehension is maimed as though by a spell: they declare that to be their joy +which in reality is but their doom, and they proceed to collaborate in wilfully +bringing about their own damnation. Thus they have become transformed into +perfectly and absolutely different creatures, and reduced to the state of +abject slaves of incorrect feeling. +</p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p> +I shall only give two instances showing how utterly the sentiment of our time +has been perverted, and how completely unconscious the present age is of this +perversion. Formerly financiers were looked down upon with honest scorn, even +though they were recognised as needful; for it was generally admitted that +every society must have its viscera. Now, however, they are the ruling power in +the soul of modern humanity, for they constitute the most covetous portion +thereof. In former times people were warned especially against taking the day +or the moment too seriously: the <i>nil admirari</i> was recommended and the +care of things eternal. Now there is but one kind of seriousness left in the +modern mind, and it is limited to the news brought by the newspaper and the +telegraph. Improve each shining hour, turn it to some account and judge it as +quickly as possible!—one would think modern men had but one virtue +left—presence of mind. Unfortunately, it much more closely resembles the +omnipresence of disgusting and insatiable cupidity, and spying inquisitiveness +become universal. For the question is whether <i>mind is present at all +to-day</i>;—but we shall leave this problem for future judges to solve; +they, at least, are bound to pass modern men through a sieve. But that this age +is vulgar, even we can see now, and it is so because it reveres precisely what +nobler ages contemned. If, therefore, it loots all the treasures of bygone wit +and wisdom, and struts about in this richest of rich garments, it only proves +its sinister consciousness of its own vulgarity in so doing; for it does not +don this garb for warmth, but merely in order to mystify its surroundings. The +desire to dissemble and to conceal himself seems stronger than the need of +protection from the cold in modern man. Thus scholars and philosophers of the +age do not have recourse to Indian and Greek wisdom in order to become wise and +peaceful: the only purpose of their work seems to be to earn them a fictitious +reputation for learning in their own time. The naturalists endeavour to +classify the animal outbreaks of violence, ruse and revenge, in the present +relations between nations and individual men, as immutable laws of nature. +Historians are anxiously engaged in proving that every age has its own +particular right and special conditions,— with the view of preparing the +groundwork of an apology for the day that is to come, when our generation will +be called to judgment. The science of government, of race, of commerce, and of +jurisprudence, all have that <i>preparatorily apologetic</i> character now; +yea, it even seems as though the small amount of intellect which still remains +active to-day, and is not used up by the great mechanism of gain and power, has +as its sole task the defending—and excusing of the present +</p> + +<p> +Against what accusers? one asks, surprised. +</p> + +<p> +Against its own bad conscience. +</p> + +<p> +And at this point we plainly discern the task assigned to modern art—that +of stupefying or intoxicating, of lulling to sleep or bewildering. By hook or +by crook to make conscience unconscious! To assist the modern soul over the +sensation of guilt, not to lead it back to innocence! And this for the space of +moments only! To defend men against themselves, that their inmost heart may be +silenced, that they may turn a deaf ear to its voice! The souls of those few +who really feel the utter ignominy of this mission and its terrible humiliation +of art, must be filled to the brim with sorrow and pity, but also with a new +and overpowering yearning. He who would fain emancipate art, and reinstall its +sanctity, now desecrated, must first have freed himself from all contact with +modern souls; only as an innocent being himself can he hope to discover the +innocence of art, for he must be ready to perform the stupendous tasks of +self-purification and self-consecration. If he succeeded, if he were ever able +to address men from out his enfranchised soul and by means of his emancipated +art, he would then find himself exposed to the greatest of dangers and involved +in the most appalling of struggles. Man would prefer to tear him and his art to +pieces, rather than acknowledge that he must die of shame in presence of them. +It is just possible that the emancipation of art is the only ray of hope +illuminating the future, an event intended only for a few isolated souls, while +the many remain satisfied to gaze into the flickering and smoking flame of +their art and can endure to do so. For they do not <i>want</i> to be +enlightened, but dazzled. They rather <i>hate</i> light —more +particularly when it is thrown on themselves. +</p> + +<p> +That is why they evade the new messenger of light; but he follows +them—the love which gave him birth compels him to follow them and to +reduce them to submission. "Ye must go through my mysteries," he cries to them; +"ye need to be purified and shaken by them. Dare to submit to this for your own +salvation, and abandon the gloomily lighted corner of life and nature which +alone seems familiar to you. I lead you into a kingdom which is also real, and +when I lead you out of my cell into your daylight, ye will be able to judge +which life is more real, which, in fact, is day and which night. Nature is much +richer, more powerful, more blessed and more terrible below the surface; ye +cannot divine this from the way in which ye live. O that ye yourselves could +learn to become natural again, and then suffer yourselves to be transformed +through nature, and into her, by the charm of my ardour and love!" +</p> + +<p> +It is the voice <i>of Wagner's art</i> which thus appeals to men. And that we, +the children of a wretched age, should be the first to hear it, shows how +deserving of pity this age must be: it shows, moreover, that real music is of a +piece with fate and primitive law; for it is quite impossible to attribute its +presence amongst us precisely at the present time to empty and meaningless +chance. Had Wagner been an accident, he would certainly have been crushed by +the superior strength of the other elements in the midst of which he was +placed, out in the coming of Wagner there seems to have been a necessity which +both justifies it and makes it glorious. Observed from its earliest beginnings, +the development of his art constitutes a most magnificent spectacle, +and—even though it was attended with great suffering—reason, law, +and intention mark its course throughout. Under the charm of such a spectacle +the observer will be led to take pleasure even in this painful development +itself, and will regard it as fortunate. He will see how everything necessarily +contributes to the welfare and benefit of talent and a nature foreordained, +however severe the trials may be through which it may have to pass. He will +realise how every danger gives it more heart, and every triumph more prudence; +how it partakes of poison and sorrow and thrives upon them. The mockery and +perversity of the surrounding world only goad and spur it on the more. Should +it happen to go astray, it but returns from its wanderings and exile loaded +with the most precious spoil; should it chance to slumber, "it does but recoup +its strength." It tempers the body itself and makes it tougher; it does not +consume life, however long it lives; it rules over man like a pinioned passion, +and allows him to fly just in the nick of time, when his foot has grown weary +in the sand or has been lacerated by the stones on his way. It can do nought +else but impart; every one must share in its work, and it is no stinted giver. +When it is repulsed it is but more prodigal in its gifts; ill used by those it +favours, it does but reward them with the richest treasures it +possesses,—and, according to the oldest and most recent experience, its +favoured ones have never been quite worthy of its gifts. That is why the nature +foreordained, through which music expresses itself to this world of appearance, +is one of the most mysterious things under the sun—an abyss in which +strength and goodness lie united, a bridge between self and non-self. Who would +undertake to name the object of its existence with any certainty?—even +supposing the sort of purpose which it would be likely to have could be divined +at all. But a most blessed foreboding leads one to ask whether it is possible +for the grandest things to exist for the purpose of the meanest, the greatest +talent for the benefit of the smallest, the loftiest virtue and holiness for +the sake of the defective and faulty? Should real music make itself heard, +because mankind of all creatures <i>least deserves to hear it, though it +perhaps need it most?</i> If one ponder over the transcendental and wonderful +character of this possibility, and turn from these considerations to look back +on life, a light will then be seen to ascend, however dark and misty it may +have seemed a moment before. +</p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p> +It is quite impossible otherwise: the observer who is confronted with a nature +such as Wagner's must, willy-nilly, turn his eyes from time to time upon +himself, upon his insignificance and frailty, and ask himself, What concern is +this of thine? Why, pray, art thou there at all? Maybe he will find no answer +to these questions, in which case he will remain estranged and confounded, face +to face with his own personality. Let it then suffice him that he has +experienced this feeling; let the fact <i>that he has felt strange and +embarrassed in the presence of his own soul</i> be the answer to his question +For it is precisely by virtue of this feeling that he shows the most powerful +manifestation of life in Wagner—the very kernel of his +strength—that demoniacal <i>magnetism</i> and gift of imparting oneself +to others, which is peculiar to his nature, and by which it not only conveys +itself to other beings, but also absorbs other beings into itself; thus +attaining to its greatness by giving and by taking. As the observer is +apparently subject to Wagner's exuberant and prodigally generous nature, he +partakes of its strength, and thereby becomes formidable <i>through him and to +him.</i> And every one who critically examines himself knows that a certain +mysterious antagonism is necessary to the process of mutual study. Should his +art lead us to experience all that falls to the lot of a soul engaged upon a +journey, <i>i.e.</i> feeling sympathy with others and sharing their fate, and +seeing the world through hundreds of different eyes, we are then able, from +such a distance, and under such strange influences, to contemplate him, once we +have lived his life. We then feel with the utmost certainty that in Wagner the +whole visible world desires to be spiritualised, absorbed, and lost in the +world of sounds. In Wagner, too, the world of sounds seeks to manifest itself +as a phenomenon for the sight; it seeks, as it were, to incarnate itself. His +art always leads him into two distinct directions, from the world of the play +of sound to the mysterious and yet related world of visible things, and <i>vice +versa.</i> He is continually forced—and the observer with him—to +re-translate the visible into spiritual and primeval life, and likewise to +perceive the most hidden interstices of the soul as something concrete and to +lend it a visible body. This constitutes the nature of the <i>dithyrambic +dramatist,</i> if the meaning given to the term includes also the actor, the +poet, and the musician; a conception necessarily borrowed from Æschylus and the +contemporary Greek artists—the only perfect examples of the dithyrambic +dramatist before Wagner. If attempts have been made to trace the most wonderful +developments to inner obstacles or deficiencies, if, for instance, in Goethe's +case, poetry was merely the refuge of a foiled talent for painting; if one may +speak of Schiller's dramas as of vulgar eloquence directed into uncommon +channels; if Wagner himself tries to account for the development of music among +the Germans by showing that, inasmuch as they are devoid of the entrancing +stimulus of a natural gift for singing, they were compelled to take up +instrumental music with the same profound seriousness as that with which their +reformers took up Christianity,—if, on the same principle, it were sought +to associate Wagner's development with an inner barrier of the same kind, it +would then be necessary to recognise in him a primitive dramatic talent, which +had to renounce all possibility of satisfying its needs by the quickest and +most methods, and which found its salvation and its means of expression in +drawing all arts to it for one great dramatic display. But then one would also +have to assume that the most powerful musician, owing to his despair at having +to appeal to people who were either only semi-musical or not musical at all, +violently opened a road for himself to the other arts, in order to acquire that +capacity for diversely communicating himself to others, by which he compelled +them to understand him, by which he compelled the masses to understand him. +However the development of the born dramatist may be pictured, in his ultimate +expression he is a being free from all inner barriers and voids: the real, +emancipated artist cannot help himself, he must think in the spirit of all the +arts at once, as the mediator and intercessor between apparently separated +spheres, the one who reinstalls the unity and wholeness of the artistic +faculty, which cannot be divined or reasoned out, but can only be revealed by +deeds themselves. But he in whose presence this deed is performed will be +overcome by its gruesome and seductive charm: in a flash he will be confronted +with a power which cancels both resistance and reason, and makes every detail +of life appear irrational and incomprehensible. Carried away from himself, he +seems to be suspended in a mysterious fiery element; he ceases to understand +himself, the standard of everything has fallen from his hands; everything +stereotyped and fixed begins to totter; every object seems to acquire a strange +colour and to tell us its tale by means of new symbols;—one would need to +be a Plato in order to discover, amid this confusion of delight and fear, how +he accomplishes the feat, and to say to the dramatist: "Should a man come into +our midst who possessed sufficient knowledge to simulate or imitate anything, +we would honour him as something wonderful and holy; we would even anoint him +and adorn his brow with a sacred diadem; but we would urge him to leave our +circle for another, notwithstanding." It may be that a member of the Platonic +community would have been able to chasten himself to such conduct: we, however, +who live in a very different community, long for, and earnestly desire, the +charmer to come to us, although we may fear him already,—and we only +desire his presence in order that our society and the mischievous reason and +might of which it is the incarnation may be confuted. A state of human +civilisation, of human society, morality, order, and general organisation which +would be able to dispense with the services of an imitative artist or mimic, is +not perhaps so utterly inconceivable; but this Perhaps is probably the most +daring that has ever been posited, and is equivalent to the gravest expression +of doubt. The only man who ought to be at liberty to speak of such a +possibility is he who could beget, and have the presentiment of, the highest +phase of all that is to come, and who then, like Faust, would either be obliged +to turn blind, or be permitted to become so. For we have no right to this +blindness; whereas Plato, after he had cast that one glance into the ideal +Hellenic, had the right to be blind to all Hellenism. For this reason, we +others are in much greater need of art; because it was <i>in the presence</i> +<i>of the realistic that our eyes began to see,</i> and we require the complete +dramatist in order that he may relieve us, if only for an hour or so, of the +insufferable tension arising from our knowledge of the chasm which lies between +our capabilities and the duties we have to perform. With him we ascend to the +highest pinnacle of feeling, and only then do we fancy we have returned to +nature's unbounded freedom, to the actual realm of liberty. From this point of +vantage we can see ourselves and our fellows emerge as something sublime from +an immense mirage, and we see the deep meaning in our struggles, in our +victories and defeats; we begin to find pleasure in the rhythm of passion and +in its victim in the hero's every footfall we distinguish the hollow echo of +death, and in its proximity we realise the greatest charm of life: thus +transformed into tragic men, we return again to life with comfort in our souls. +We are conscious of a new feeling of security, as if we had found a road +leading out of the greatest dangers, excesses, and ecstasies, back to the +limited and the familiar: there where our relations with our fellows seem to +partake of a superior benevolence, and are at all events more noble than they +were. For here, everything seemingly serious and needful, which appears to lead +to a definite goal, resembles only detached fragments when compared with the +path we ourselves have trodden, even in our dreams,— detached fragments +of that complete and grand experience whereof we cannot even think without a +thrill. Yes, we shall even fall into danger and be tempted to take life too +easily, simply because in art we were in such deadly earnest concerning it, as +Wagner says somewhere anent certain incidents in his own life. For if we who +are but the spectators and not the creators of this display of dithyrambic +dramatic art, can almost imagine a dream to be more real than the actual +experiences of our wakeful hours, how much more keenly must the creator realise +this contrast! There he stands amid all the clamorous appeals and importunities +of the day, and of the necessities of life; in the midst of Society and +State—and as what does he stand there? Maybe he is the only wakeful one, +the only being really and truly conscious, among a host of confused and +tormented sleepers, among a multitude of deluded and suffering people. He may +even feel like a victim of chronic insomnia, and fancy himself obliged to bring +his clear, sleepless, and conscious life into touch with somnambulists and +ghostly well-intentioned creatures. Thus everything that others regard as +commonplace strikes him as weird, and he is tempted to meet the whole +phenomenon with haughty mockery. But how peculiarly this feeling is crossed, +when another force happens to join his quivering pride, the craving of the +heights for the depths, the affectionate yearning for earth, for happiness and +for fellowship—then, when he thinks of all he misses as a hermit-creator, +he feels as though he ought to descend to the earth like a god, and bear all +that is weak, human, and lost, "in fiery arms up to heaven," so as to obtain +love and no longer worship only, and to be able to lose himself completely in +his love. But it is just this contradiction which is the miraculous fact in the +soul of the dithyrambic dramatist, and if his nature can be understood at all, +surely it must be here. For his creative moments in art occur when the +antagonism between his feelings is at its height and when his proud +astonishment and wonder at the world combine with the ardent desire to approach +that same world as a lover. The glances he then bends towards the earth are +always rays of sunlight which "draw up water," form mist, and gather +storm-clouds. <i>Clear-sighted and prudent, loving and unselfish</i> at the +same time, his glance is projected downwards; and all things that are illumined +by this double ray of light, nature conjures to discharge their strength, to +reveal their most hidden secret, and this through bashfulness. It is more than +a mere figure of speech to say that he surprised Nature with that glance, that +he caught her naked; that is why she would conceal her shame by seeming +precisely the reverse. What has hitherto been invisible, the inner life, seeks +its salvation in the region of the visible; what has hitherto been only +visible, repairs to the dark ocean of sound: <i>thus Nature, in trying to +conceal herself, unveils the character of her contradictions.</i> In a dance, +wild, rhythmic and gliding, and with ecstatic movements, the born dramatist +makes known something of what is going on within him, of what is taking place +in nature: the dithyrambic quality of his movements speaks just as eloquently +of quivering comprehension and of powerful penetration as of the approach of +love and self-renunciation. Intoxicated speech follows the course of this +rhythm; melody resounds coupled with speech, and in its turn melody projects +its sparks into the realm of images and ideas. A dream-apparition, like and +unlike the image of Nature and her wooer, hovers forward; it condenses into +more human shapes; it spreads out in response to its heroically triumphant +will, and to a most delicious collapse and cessation of will:—thus +tragedy is born; thus life is presented with its grandest knowledge— that +of tragic thought; thus, at last, the greatest charmer and benefactor among +mortals—the dithyrambic dramatist—is evolved. +</p> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p> +Wagner's actual life—that is to say, the gradual evolution of the +dithyrambic dramatist in him— was at the same time an uninterrupted +struggle with himself, a struggle which never ceased until his evolution was +complete. His fight with the opposing world was grim and ghastly, only because +it was this same world—this alluring enemy—which he heard speaking +out of his own heart, and because he nourished a violent demon in his +breast—the demon of resistance. When the ruling idea of his life gained +ascendancy over his mind—the idea that drama is, of all arts, the one +that can exercise the greatest amount of influence over the world—it +aroused the most active emotions in his whole being. It gave him no very clear +or luminous decision, at first, as to what was to be done and desired in the +future; for the idea then appeared merely as a form of temptation—that is +to say, as the expression of his gloomy, selfish, and insatiable will, eager +for <i>power and glory.</i> Influence—the greatest amount of +influence—how? over whom?—these were henceforward the questions and +problems which did not cease to engage his head and his heart. He wished to +conquer and triumph as no other artist had ever done before, and, if possible, +to reach that height of tyrannical omnipotence at one stroke for which all his +instincts secretly craved. With a jealous and cautious eye, he took stock of +everything successful, and examined with special care all that upon which this +influence might be brought to bear. With the magic sight of the dramatist, +which scans souls as easily as the most familiar book, he scrutinised the +nature of the spectator and the listener, and although he was often perturbed +by the discoveries he made, he very quickly found means wherewith he could +enthral them. These means were ever within his reach: everything that moved him +deeply he desired and could also produce; at every stage in his career he +understood just as much of his predecessors as he himself was able to create, +and he never doubted that he would be able to do what they had done. In this +respect his nature is perhaps more presumptuous even than Goethe's, despite the +fact that the latter said of himself: "I always thought I had mastered +everything; and even had I been crowned king, I should have regarded the honour +as thoroughly deserved." Wagner's ability. his taste and his +aspirations—all of which have ever been as closely related as key to +lock—grew and attained to freedom together; but there was a time when it +was not so. What did he care about the feeble but noble and egotistically +lonely feeling which that friend of art fosters, who, blessed with a literary +and aesthetic education, takes his stand far from the common mob! But those +violent spiritual tempests which are created by the crowd when under the +influence of certain climactic passages of dramatic song, that sudden +bewildering ecstasy of the emotions, thoroughly honest and selfless—they +were but echoes of his own experiences and sensations, and filled him with +glowing hope for the greatest possible power and effect. Thus he recognised +<i>grand opera</i> as the means whereby he might express his ruling thoughts; +towards it his passions impelled him; his eyes turned in the direction of its +home. The larger portion of his life, his most daring wanderings, and his +plans, studies, sojourns, and acquaintances are only to be explained by an +appeal to these passions and the opposition of the outside world, which the +poor, restless, passionately ingenuous German artist had to face. Another +artist than he knew better how to become master of this calling, and now that +it has gradually become known by means of what ingenious artifices of all kinds +Meyerbeer succeeded in preparing and achieving every one of his great +successes, and how scrupulously the sequence of "effects" was taken into +account in the opera itself, people will begin to understand how bitterly +Wagner was mortified when his eyes were opened to the tricks of the +<i>metier</i> which were indispensable to a great public success. I doubt +whether there has ever been another great artist in history who began his +career with such extraordinary illusions and who so unsuspectingly and +sincerely fell in with the most revolting form of artistic trickery. And yet +the way in which he proceeded partook of greatness and was therefore +extraordinarily fruitful. For when he perceived his error, despair made him +understand the meaning of modern success, of the modern public, and the whole +prevaricating spirit of modern art. And while becoming the critic of "effect," +indications of his own purification began to quiver through him. It seems as if +from that time forward the spirit of music spoke to him with an unprecedented +spiritual charm. As though he had just risen from a long illness and had for +the first time gone into the open, he scarcely trusted his hand and his eye, +and seemed to grope along his way. Thus it was an almost delightful surprise to +him to find that he was still a musician and an artist, and perhaps then only +for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +Every subsequent stage in Wagner's development may be distinguished thus, that +the two fundamental powers of his nature drew ever more closely together: the +aversion of the one to the other lessened, the higher self no longer +condescended to serve its more violent and baser brother; it loved him and felt +compelled to serve him. The tenderest and purest thing is ultimately—that +is to say, at the highest stage of its evolution— always associated with +the mightiest; the storming instincts pursue their course as before, but along +different roads, in the direction of the higher self; and this in its turn +descends to earth and finds its likeness in everything earthly. If it were +possible, on this principle, to speak of the final aims and unravelments of +that evolution, and to remain intelligible, it might also be possible to +discover the graphic terms with which to describe the long interval preceding +that last development; but I doubt whether the first achievement is possible at +all, and do not therefore attempt the second. The limits of the interval +separating the preceding and the subsequent ages will be described historically +in two sentences: Wagner was the <i>revolutionist of society</i>; Wagner +recognised the only artistic element that ever existed hitherto—<i>the +poetry of the people</i>. The ruling idea which in a new form and mightier than +it had ever been, obsessed Wagner, after he had overcome his share of despair +and repentance, led him to both conclusions. Influence, the greatest possible +amount of influence to be exercised by means of the stage! —but over +whom? He shuddered when he thought of those whom he had, until then, sought to +influence. His experience led him to realise the utterly ignoble position which +art and the artist adorn; how a callous and hard-hearted community that calls +itself the good, but which is really the evil, reckons art and the artist among +its slavish retinue, and keeps them both in order to minister to its need of +deception. Modern art is a luxury; he saw this, and understood that it must +stand or fall with the luxurious society of which it forms but a part. This +society had but one idea, to use its power as hard-heartedly and as craftily as +possible in order to render the impotent—the people—ever more and +more serviceable, base and unpopular, and to rear the modern workman out of +them. It also robbed them of the greatest and purest things which their deepest +needs led them to create, and through which they meekly expressed the genuine +and unique art within their soul: their myths, songs, dances, and their +discoveries in the department of language, in order to distil therefrom a +voluptuous antidote against the fatigue and boredom of its existence— +modern art. How this society came into being, how it learned to draw new +strength for itself from the seemingly antagonistic spheres of power, and how, +for instance, decaying Christianity allowed itself to be used, under the cover +of half measures and subterfuges, as a shield against the masses and as a +support of this society and its possessions, and finally how science and men of +learning pliantly consented to become its drudges—all this Wagner traced +through the ages, only to be convulsed with loathing at the end of his +researches. Through his compassion for the people, he became a revolutionist. +From that time forward he loved them and longed for them, as he longed for his +art; for, alas! in them alone, in this fast disappearing, scarcely recognisable +body, artificially held aloof, he now saw the only spectators and listeners +worthy and fit for the power of his masterpieces, as he pictured them. Thus his +thoughts concentrated themselves upon the question, How do the people come into +being? How are they resuscitated? +</p> + +<p> +He always found but one answer: if a large number of people were afflicted with +the sorrow that afflicted him, that number would constitute the people, he said +to himself. And where the same sorrow leads to the same impulses and desires, +similar satisfaction would necessarily be sought, and the same pleasure found +in this satisfaction. If he inquired into what it was that most consoled him +and revived his spirits in his sorrow, what it was that succeeded best in +counteracting his affliction, it was with joyful certainty that he discovered +this force only in music and myth, the latter of which he had already +recognised as the people's creation and their language of distress. It seemed +to him that the origin of music must be similar, though perhaps more +mysterious. In both of these elements he steeped and healed his soul; they +constituted his most urgent need:—in this way he was able to ascertain +how like his sorrow was to that of the people, when they came into being, and +how they must arise anew if <i>many Wagners</i> are going to appear. What part +did myth and music play in modern society, wherever they had not been actually +sacrificed to it? They shared very much the same fate, a fact which only tends +to prove their close relationship: myth had been sadly debased and usurped by +idle tales and stories; completely divested of its earnest and sacred virility, +it was transformed into the plaything and pleasing bauble of children and women +of the afflicted people. Music had kept itself alive among the poor, the +simple, and the isolated; the German musician had not succeeded in adapting +himself to the luxurious traffic of the arts; he himself had become a fairy +tale full Of monsters and mysteries, full of the most touching omens and +auguries—a helpless questioner, something bewitched and in need of +rescue. Here the artist distinctly heard the command that concerned him +alone—to recast myth and make it virile, to break the spell lying over +music and to make music speak: he felt his strength for drama liberated at one +stroke, and the foundation of his sway established over the hitherto +undiscovered province lying between myth and music. His new masterpiece, which +included all the most powerful, effective, and entrancing forces that he knew, +he now laid before men with this great and painfully cutting question: "Where +are ye all who suffer and think as I do? Where is that number of souls that I +wish to see become a people, that ye may share the same joys and comforts with +me? In your joy ye will reveal your misery to me." These were his questions in +Tannhauser and Lohengrin, in these operas he looked about him for his equals +—the anchorite yearned for the number. +</p> + +<p> +But what were his feelings withal? Nobody answered him. Nobody had understood +his question. Not that everybody remained silent: on the contrary, answers were +given to thousands of questions which he had never put; people gossipped about +the new masterpieces as though they had only been composed for the express +purpose of supplying subjects for conversation. The whole mania of aesthetic +scribbling and small talk overtook the Germans like a pestilence, and ith that +lack of modesty which characterises both German scholars and German +journalists, people began measuring, and generally meddling with, these +masterpieces, as well as with the person of the artist. Wagner tried to help +the comprehension of his question by writing about it; but this only led to +fresh confusion and more uproar, —for a musician who writes and thinks +was, at that time, a thing unknown. The cry arose: "He is a theorist who wishes +to remould art with his far-fetched notions—stone him!" Wagner was +stunned: his question was not understood, his need not felt; his masterpieces +seemed a message addressed only to the deaf and blind; his people— an +hallucination. He staggered and vacillated. The feasibility of a complete +upheaval of all things then suggested itself to him, and he no longer shrank +from the thought: possibly, beyond this revolution and dissolution, there might +be a chance of a new hope; on the other hand, there might not. But, in any +case, would not complete annihilation be better than the wretched existing +state of affairs? Not very long afterwards, he was a political exile in dire +distress. +</p> + +<p> +And then only, with this terrible change in his environment and in his soul, +there begins that period of the great man's life over which as a golden +reflection there is stretched the splendour of highest mastery. Now at last the +genius of dithyrambic drama doffs its last disguise. He is isolated; the age +seems empty to him; he ceases to hope; and his all-embracing glance descend +once more into the deep, and finds the bottom, there he sees suffering in the +nature of things, and henceforward, having become more impersonal, he accepts +his portion of sorrow more calmly. The desire for great power which was but the +inheritance of earlier conditions is now directed wholly into the channel of +creative art; through his art he now speaks only to himself, and no longer to a +public or to a people, and strives to lend this intimate conversation all the +distinction and other qualities in keeping with such a mighty dialogue. During +the preceding period things had been different with his art; then he had +concerned himself, too, albeit with refinement and subtlety, with immediate +effects: that artistic production was also meant as a question, and it ought to +have called forth an immediate reply. And how often did Wagner not try to make +his meaning clearer to those he questioned! In view of their inexperience in +having questions put to them, he tried to meet them half way and to conform +with older artistic notions and means of expression. When he feared that +arguments couched in his own terms would only meet with failure, he had tried +to persuade and to put his question in a language half strange to himself +though familiar to his listeners. Now there was nothing to induce him to +continue this indulgence: all he desired now was to come to terms with himself, +to think of the nature of the world in dramatic actions, and to philosophise in +music; <i>what desires</i> he still possessed turned in the direction of the +<i>latest</i> <i>philosophical views.</i> He who is worthy of knowing what took +place in him at that time or what questions were thrashed out in the darkest +holy of holies in his soul—and not many are worthy of knowing all +this—must hear, observe, and experience Tristan and Isolde, the real +<i>opus metaphysicum</i> of all art, a work upon which rests the broken look of +a dying man with his insatiable and sweet craving for the secrets of night and +death, far away from life which throws a horribly spectral morning light, +sharply, upon all that is evil, delusive, and sundering: moreover, a drama +austere in the severity of its form, overpowering in its simple grandeur, and +in harmony with the secret of which it treats—lying dead in the midst of +life, being one in two. And yet there is something still more wonderful than +this work, and that is the artist himself, the man who, shortly after he had +accomplished it, was able to create a picture of life so full of clashing +colours as the Meistersingers of Nurnberg, and who in both of these +compositions seems merely to have refreshed and equipped himself for the task +of completing at his ease that gigantic edifice in four parts which he had long +ago planned and begun—the ultimate result of all his meditations and +poetical flights for over twenty years, his Bayreuth masterpiece, the Ring of +the Nibelung! He who marvels at the rapid succession of the two operas, Tristan +and the Meistersingers, has failed to understand one important side of the life +and nature of all great Germans: he does not know the peculiar soil out of +which that essentially German gaiety, which characterised Luther, Beethoven, +and Wagner, can grow, the gaiety which other nations quite fail to understand +and which even seems to be missing in the Germans of to-day—that clear +golden and thoroughly fermented mixture of simplicity, deeply discriminating +love, observation, and roguishness which Wagner has dispensed, as the most +precious of drinks, to all those who have suffered deeply through life, but who +nevertheless return to it with the smile of convalescents. And, as he also +turned upon the world the eyes of one reconciled, he was more filled with rage +and disgust than with sorrow, and more prone to renounce the love of power than +to shrink in awe from it. As he thus silently furthered his greatest work and +gradually laid score upon score, something happened which caused him to stop +and listen: <i>friends</i> were coming, a kind of subterranean movement of many +souls approached with a message for him—it was still far from being the +people that constituted this movement and which wished to bear him news, but it +may have been the nucleus and first living source of a really human community +which would reach perfection in some age still remote. For the present they +only brought him the warrant that his great work could be entrusted to the care +and charge of faithful men, men who would watch and be worthy to watch over +this most magnificent of all legacies to posterity. In the love of friends his +outlook began to glow with brighter colours; his noblest care—the care +that his work should be accomplished and should find a refuge before the +evening of his life—was not his only preoccupation. something occurred +which he could only understand as a symbol: it was as much as a new comfort and +a new token of happiness to him. A great German war caused him to open his +eyes, and he observed that those very Germans whom he considered so thoroughly +degenerate and so inferior to the high standard of real Teutonism, of which he +had formed an ideal both from self-knowledge and the conscientious study of +other great Germans in history; he observed that those very Germans were, in +the midst of terrible circumstances, exhibiting two virtues of the highest +order—simple bravery and prudence; and with his heart bounding with +delight he conceived the hope that he might not be the last German, and that +some day a greater power would perhaps stand by his works than that devoted yet +meagre one consisting of his little band of friends—a power able to guard +it during that long period preceding its future glory, as the masterpiece of +this future. Perhaps it was not possible to steel this belief permanently +against doubt, more particularly when it sought to rise to hopes of immediate +results: suffice it that he derived a tremendous spur from his environment, +which constantly reminded him of a lofty duty ever to be fulfilled. +</p> + +<p> +His work would not have been complete had he handed it to the world only in the +form of silent manuscript. He must make known to the world what it could not +guess in regard to his productions, what was his alone to reveal—the new +style for the execution and presentation of his works, so that he might set +that example which nobody else could set, and thus establish <i>a tradition of +style</i>, not on paper, not by means of signs, but through impressions made +upon the very souls of men. This duty had become all the more pressing with +him, seeing that precisely in regard to the style of their execution his other +works had meanwhile succumbed to the most insufferable and absurd of fates: +they were famous and admired, yet no one manifested the slightest sign of +indignation when they were mishandled. For, strange to say, whereas he +renounced ever more and more the hope of success among his contemporaries, +owing to his all too thorough knowledge of them, and disclaimed all desire for +power, both "success" and "power" came to him, or at least everybody told him +so. It was in vain that he made repeated attempts to expose, with the utmost +clearness, how worthless and humiliating such successes were to him: people +were so unused to seeing an artist able to differentiate at all between the +effects of his works that even his most solemn protests were never entirely +trusted. Once he had perceived the relationship existing between our system of +theatres and their success, and the men of his time, his soul ceased to be +attracted by the stage at all. He had no further concern with aesthetic +ecstasies and the exultation of excited crowds, and he must even have felt +angry to see his art being gulped down indiscriminately by the yawning abyss of +boredom and the insatiable love of distraction. How flat and pointless every +effect proved under these circumstances— more especially as it was much +more a case of having to minister to one quite insatiable than of cloying the +hunger of a starving man— Wagner began to perceive from the following +repeated experience: everybody, even the performers and promoters, regarded his +art as nothing more nor less than any other kind of stage-music, and quite in +keeping with the repulsive style of traditional opera; thanks to the efforts of +cultivated conductors, his works were even cut and hacked about, until, after +they had been bereft of all their spirit, they were held to be nearer the +professional singer's plane. But when people tried to follow Wagner's +instructions to the letter, they proceeded so clumsily and timidly that they +were not incapable of representing the midnight riot in the second act of the +Meistersingers by a group of ballet-dancers. They seemed to do all this, +however, in perfectly good faith—without the smallest evil intention. +Wagner's devoted efforts to show, by means of his own example, the correct and +complete way of performing his works, and his attempts at training individual +singers in the new style, were foiled time after time, owing only to the +thoughtlessness and iron tradition that ruled all around him. Moreover, he was +always induced to concern himself with that class of theatricals which he most +thoroughly loathed. Had not even Goethe, m his time, once grown tired of +attending the rehearsals of his Iphigenia? "I suffer unspeakably," he +explained, "when I have to tumble about Wlth these spectres, which never seem +to act as they should." Meanwhile Wagner's "success" in the kind of drama which +he most disliked steadily increased; so much so, indeed, that the largest +theatres began to subsist almost entirely upon the receipts which Wagner's art, +in the guise of operas, brought into them. This growing passion on the part of +the theatre-going public bewildered even some of Wagner's friends; but this man +who had endured so much, had still to endure the bitterest pain of all—he +had to see his friends intoxicated with his "successes" and "triumphs" +everywhere where his highest ideal was openly belied and shattered. It seemed +almost as though a people otherwise earnest and reflecting had decided to +maintain an attitude of systematic levity only towards its most serious artist, +and to make him the privileged recipient of all the vulgarity, thoughtlessness, +clumsiness, and malice of which the German nature is capable. When, therefore, +during the German War, a current of greater magnanimity and freedom seemed to +run through every one, Wagner remembered the duty to which he had pledged +himself, namely, to rescue his greatest work from those successes and affronts +which were so largely due to misunderstandings, and to present it in his most +personal rhythm as an example for all times. Thus he conceived <i>the idea of +Bayreuth</i>. In the wake of that current of better feeling already referred +to, he expected to notice an enhanced sense of duty even among those with whom +he wished to entrust his most precious possession. Out of this two-fold duty, +that event took shape which, like a glow of strange sunlight, will illumine the +few years that lie behind and before us, and was designed to bless that distant +and problematic future which to our time and to the men of our time can be +little more than a riddle or a horror, but which to the fevv who are allowed to +assist in its realisation is a foretaste of coming joy, a foretaste of love in +a higher sphere, through which they know themselves to be blessed, blessing and +fruitful, far beyond their span of years; and which to Wagner himself is but a +cloud of distress, care, meditation, and grief, a fresh passionate outbreak of +antagonistic elements, but all bathed in the starlight of <i>selfless +fidelity</i>, and changed by this light into indescribable joy. +</p> + +<p> +It scarcely need be said that it is the breath of tragedy that fills the lungs +of the world. And every one whose innermost soul has a presentiment of this, +every one unto whom the yoke of tragic deception concerning the aim of life, +the distortion and shattering of intentions, renunciation and purification +through love, are not unknown things, must be conscious of a vague reminiscence +of Wagner's own heroic life, in the masterpieces with which the great man now +presents us. We shall feel as though Siegfried from some place far away were +relating his deeds to us: the most blissful of touching recollections are +always draped in the deep mourning of waning summer, when all nature lies still +in the sable twilight. +</p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p> +All those to whom the thought of Wagner's development as a man may have caused +pain will find it both restful and healing to reflect upon what he was as an +artist, and to observe how his ability and daring attained to such a high +degree of independence. If art mean only the faculty of communicating to others +what one has oneself experienced, and if every work of art confutes itself +which does not succeed in making itself understood, then Wagner's greatness as +an artist would certainly lie in the almost demoniacal power of his nature to +communicate with others, to express itself in all languages at once, and to +make known its most intimate and personal experience with the greatest amount +of distinctness possible. His appearance in the history of art resembles +nothing so much as a volcanic eruption of the united artistic faculties of +Nature herself, after mankind had grown to regard the practice of a special art +as a necessary rule. It is therefore a somewhat moot point whether he ought to +be classified as a poet, a painter, or a musician, even using each these words +in its widest sense, or whether a new word ought not to be invented in order to +describe him. +</p> + +<p> +Wagner's <i>poetic</i> ability is shown by his thinking in visible and actual +facts, and not in ideas; that is to say, he thinks mythically, as the people +have always done. No particular thought lies at the bottom of a myth, as the +children of an artificial ulture would have us believe; but it is in itself a +thought: it conveys an idea of the world, but through the medium of a chain of +events, actions, and pains. The Ring of the Nihelung is a huge system of +thought without the usual abstractness of the latter. It were perhaps possible +for a philosopher to present us with its exact equivalent in pure thought, and +to purge it of all pictures drawn from life, and of all living actions, in +which case we should be in possession of the same thing portrayed in two +completely different forms—the one for the people, and the other for the +very reverse of the people; that is to say, men of theory. But Wagner makes no +appeal to this last class, for the man of theory can know as little of poetry +or myth as the deaf man can know of music; both of them being conscious only of +movements which seem meaningless to them. It is impossible to appreciate either +one of these completely different forms from the standpoint of the other: as +long as the poet's spell is upon one, one thinks with him just as though one +were merely a feeling, seeing, and hearing creature; the conclusions thus +reached are merely the result of the association of the phenomena one sees, and +are therefore not logical but actual causalities. +</p> + +<p> +If, therefore, the heroes and gods of mythical dramas, as understood by Wagner, +were to express themselves plainly in words, there would be a danger (inasmuch +as the language of words might tend to awaken the theoretical side in us) of +our finding ourselves transported from the world of myth to the world of ideas, +and the result would be not only that we should fail to understand with greater +ease, but that we should probably not understand at all. Wagner thus forced +language back to a more primeval stage in its development a stage at which it +was almost free of the abstract element, and was still poetry, imagery, and +feeling; the fearlessness with which Wagner undertook this formidable mission +shows how imperatively he was led by the spirit of poetry, as one who must +follow whithersoever his phantom leader may direct him. Every word in these +dramas ought to allow of being sung, and gods and heroes should make them their +own—that was the task which Wagner set his literary faculty. Any other +person in like circumstances would have given up all hope; for our language +seems almost too old and decrepit to allow of one's exacting what Wagner +exacted from it; and yet, when he smote the rock, he brought forth an abundant +flow. Precisely owing to the fact that he loved his language and exacted a +great deal from it, Wagner suffered more than any other German through its +decay and enfeeblement, from its manifold losses and mutilations of form, from +its unwieldy particles and clumsy construction, and from its unmusical +auxiliary verbs. All these are things which have entered the language through +sin and depravity. On the other hand, he was exceedingly proud to record the +number of primitive and vigorous factors still extant in the current speech; +and in the tonic strength of its roots he recognised quite a wonderful affinity +and relation to real music, a quality which distinguished it from the highly +volved and artificially rhetorical Latin languages. Wagner's poetry is eloquent +of his affection for the German language, and there is a heartiness and candour +in his treatment of it which are scarcely to be met with in any other German +writer, save perhaps Goethe. Forcibleness of diction, daring brevity, power and +variety in rhythm, a remarkable wealth of strong and striking words, simplicity +in construction, an almost unique inventive faculty in regard to fluctuations +of feeling and presentiment, and therewithal a perfectly pure and overflowing +stream of colloquialisms—these are the qualities that have to be +enumerated, and even then the greatest and most wonderful of all is omitted. +Whoever reads two such poems as Tristan and the Meistersingers consecutively +will be just as astonished and doubtful in regard to the language as to the +music; for he will wonder how it could have been possible for a creative spirit +to dominate so perfectly two worlds as different in form, colour, and +arrangement, as in soul. This is the most wonderful achievement of Wagner's +talent; for the ability to give every work its own linguistic stamp and to find +a fresh body and a new sound for every thought is a task which only the great +master can successfully accomplish. Where this rarest of all powers manifests +itself, adverse criticism can be but petty and fruitless which confines itself +to attacks upon certain excesses and eccentricities in the treatment, or upon +the more frequent obscurities of expression and ambiguity of thought. Moreover, +what seemed to electrify and scandalise those who were most bitter in their +criticism was not so much the language as the spirit of the Wagnerian +operas—that is to say, his whole manner of feeling and suffering. It were +well to wait until these very critics have acquired another spirit themselves; +they will then also speak a different tongue, and, by that time, it seems to me +things will go better with the German language than they do at present. +</p> + +<p> +In the first place, however, no one who studies Wagner the poet and +word-painter should forget that none of his dramas were meant to be read, and +that it would therefore be unjust to judge them from the same standpoint as the +spoken drama. The latter plays upon the feelings by means of words and ideas, +and in this respect it is under the dominion of the laws of rhetoric. But in +real life passion is seldom eloquent: in spoken drama it perforce must be, in +order to be able to express itself at all. When, however, the language of a +people is already in a state of decay and deterioration, the word-dramatist is +tempted to impart an undue proportion of new colour and form both to his medium +and to his thoughts; he would elevate the language in order to make it a +vehicle capable of conveying lofty feelings, and by so doing he runs the risk +of becoming abstruse. By means of sublime phrases and conceits he likewise +tries to invest passion with some nobility, and thereby runs yet another risk, +that of appearing false and artificial. For in real life passions do not speak +in sentences, and the poetical element often draws suspicion upon their +genuineness when it departs too palpably from reality. Now Wagner, who was the +first to detect the essential feeling in spoken drama, presents every dramatic +action threefold: in a word, in a gesture, and in a sound. For, as a matter of +fact, music succeeds in conveying the deepest emotions of the dramatic +performers direct to the spectators, and while these see the evidence of the +actors' states of soul in their bearing and movements, a third though more +feeble confirmation of these states, translated into conscious will, quickly +follows in the form of the spoken word. All these effects fulfil their purpose +simultaneously, without disturbing one another in the least, and urge the +spectator to a completely new understanding and sympathy, just as if his senses +had suddenly grown more spiritual and his spirit more sensual, and as if +everything which seeks an outlet in him, and which makes him thirst for +knowledge, were free and joyful in exultant perception. Because every essential +factor in a Wagnerian drama is conveyed to the spectator with the utmost +clearness, illumined and permeated throughout by music as by an internal flame, +their author can dispense with the expedients usually employed by the writer of +the spoken play in order to lend light and warmth to the action. The whole of +the dramatist's stock in trade could be more simple, and the architect's sense +of rhythm could once more dare to manifest itself in the general proportions of +the edifice; for there was no more need of "the deliberate confusion and +involved variety of tyles, whereby the ordinary playwright strove in the +interests of his work to produce that feeling of wonder and thrilling suspense +which he ultimately enhanced to one of delighted amazement. The impression of +ideal distance and height was no more to be induced by means of tricks and +artifices. Language withdrew itself from the length and breadth of rhetoric +into the strong confines of the speech of the feelings, and although the actor +spoke much less about all he did and felt in the performance, his innermost +sentiments, which the ordinary playwright had hitherto ignored for fear of +being undramatic, was now able to drive the spectators to passionate sympathy, +while the accompanying language of gestures could be restricted to the most +delicate modulations. Now, when passions are rendered in song, they require +rather more time than when conveyed by speech; music prolongs, so to speak, the +duration of the feeling, from which it follows, as a rule, that the actor who +is also a singer must overcome the extremely unplastic animation from which +spoken drama suffers. He feels himself incited all the more to a certain +nobility of bearing, because music envelopes his feelings in a purer +atmosphere, and thus brings them closer to beauty. +</p> + +<p> +The extraordinary tasks which Wagner set his actors and singers will provoke +rivalry between them for ages to come, in the personification of each of his +heroes with the greatest possible amount of clearness, perfection, and +fidelity, according to that perfect incorporation already typified by the music +of drama. Following this leader, the eye of the plastic artist will ultimately +behold the marvels of another visible world, which, previous to him, was seen +for the first time only by the creator of such works as the Ring of the +Nibelung —that creator of highest rank, who, like AEschylus, points the +way to a coming art. Must not jealousy awaken the greatest talent, if the +plastic artist ever compares the effect of his productions with that of +Wagnerian music, in which there is so much pure and sunny happiness that he who +hears it feels as though all previous music had been but an alien, faltering, +and constrained language; as though in the past it had been but a thing to +sport with in the presence of those who were not deserving of serious +treatment, or a thing with which to train and instruct those who were not even +deserving of play? In the case of this earlier kind of music, the joy we always +experience while listening to Wagner's compositions is ours only for a short +space of time, and it would then seem as though it were overtaken by certain +rare moments of forgetfulness, during which it appears to be communing with its +inner self and directing its eyes upwards, like Raphael's Cecilia, away from +the listeners and from all those who demand distraction, happiness, or +instruction from it. +</p> + +<p> +In general it may be said of Wagner the Musician, that he endowed everything in +nature which hitherto had had no wish to speak with the power of speech: he +refuses to admit that anything must be dumb, and, resorting to the dawn, the +forest, the mist, the cliffs, the hills, the thrill of night and the moonlight, +he observes a desire common to them all—they too wish to sing their own +melody. If the philosopher says it is will that struggles for existence in +animate and inanimate nature, the musician adds: And this will wherever it +manifests itself, yearns for a melodious existence. +</p> + +<p> +Before Wagner's time, music for the most part moved in narrow limits: it +concerned itself with the permanent states of man, or with what the Greeks call +ethos. And only with Beethoven did it begin to find the language of pathos, of +passionate will, and of the dramatic occurrences in the souls of men. Formerly, +what people desired was to interpret a mood, a stolid, merry, reverential, or +penitential state of mind, by means of music; the object was, by means of a +certain striking uniformity of treatment and the prolonged duration of this +uniformity, to compel the listener to grasp the meaning of the music and to +impose its mood upon him. To all such interpretations of mood or atmosphere, +distinct and particular forms of treatment were necessary: others were +established by convention. The question of length was left to the discretion of +the musician, whose aim was not only to put the listener into a certain mood, +but also to avoid rendering that mood monotonous by unduly protracting it. A +further stage was reached when the interpretations of contrasted moods were +made to follow one upon the other, and the charm of light and shade was +discovered; and yet another step was made when the same piece of music was +allowed to contain a contrast of the ethos—for instance, the contest +between a male and a female theme. All these, however, are crude and primitive +stages in the development of music. The fear of passion suggested the first +rule, and the fear of monotony the second; all depth of feeling and any excess +thereof were regarded as "unethical." Once, however, the art of the ethos had +repeatedly been made to ring all the changes on the moods and situations which +convention had decreed as suitable, despite the most astounding resourcefulness +on the part of its masters, its powers were exhausted. Beethoven was the first +to make music speak a new language—till then forbidden—the language +of passion; but as his art was based upon the laws and conventions of the +ETHOS, and had to attempt to justify itself in regard to them, his artistic +development was beset with peculiar difficulties and obscurities. An inner +dramatic factor—and every passion pursues a dramatic +course—struggled to obtain a new form, but the traditional scheme of +"mood music" stood in its way, and protested—almost after the manner in +which morality opposes innovations and immorality. It almost seemed, therefore, +as if Beethoven had set himself the contradictory task of expressing pathos in +the terms of the ethos. This view does not, however, apply to Beethoven's +latest and greatest works; for he really did succeed in discovering a novel +method of expressing the grand and vaulting arch of passion. He merely selected +certain portions of its curve; imparted these with the utmost clearness to his +listeners, and then left it to them to <i>divine</i> its whole span. Viewed +superficially, the new form seemed rather like an aggregation of several +musical compositions, of which every one appeared to represent a sustained +situation, but was in reality but a momentary stage in the dramatic course of a +passion. The listener might think that he was hearing the old "mood" music over +again, except that he failed to grasp the relation of the various parts to one +another, and these no longer conformed with the canon of the law. Even among +minor musicians, there flourished a certain contempt for the rule which +enjoined harmony in the general construction of a composition and the sequence +of the parts in their works still remained arbitrary. Then, owing to a +misunderstanding, the discovery of the majestic treatment of passion led back +to the use of the single movement with an optional setting, and the tension +between the parts thus ceased completely. That is why the symphony, as +Beethoven understood it, is such a wonderfully obscure production, more +especially when, here and there, it makes faltering attempts at rendering +Beethoven's pathos. The means ill befit the intention, and the intention is, on +the whole, not sufficiently clear to the listener, because it was never really +clear, even in the mind of the composer. But the very injunction that something +definite must be imparted, and that this must be done as distinctly as +possible, becomes ever more and more essential, the higher, more difficult, and +more exacting the class of work happens to be. +</p> + +<p> +That is why all Wagner's efforts were concentrated upon the one object of +discovering those means which best served the purpose of <i>distinctness</i>, +and to this end it was above all necessary for him to emancipate himself from +all the prejudices and claims of the old "mood" music, and to give his +compositions—the musical interpretations of feelings and passion—a +perfectly unequivocal mode of expression. If we now turn to what he has +achieved, we see that his services to music are practically equal in rank to +those which that sculptor-inventor rendered to sculpture who introduced +"sculpture in the round." All previous music seems stiff and uncertain when +compared with Wagner's, just as though it were ashamed and did not wish to be +inspected from all sides. With the most consummate skill and precision, Wagner +avails himself of every degree and colour in the realm of feeling; without the +slightest hesitation or fear of its escaping him, he seizes upon the most +delicate, rarest, and mildest emotion, and holds it fast, as though it had +hardened at his touch, despite the fact that it may seem like the frailest +butterfly to every one else. His music is never vague or dreamy; everything +that is allowed to speak through it, whether it be of man or of nature, has a +strictly individual passion; storm and fire acquire the ruling power of a +personal will in his hands. Over all the clamouring characters and the clash of +their passions, over the whole torrent of contrasts, an almighty and symphonic +understanding hovers with perfect serenity, and continually produces concord +out of war. Taken as a whole, Wagner's music is a reflex of the world as it was +understood by the great Ephesian poet—that is to say, a harmony resulting +from strife, as the union of justice and enmity. I admire the ability which +could describe the grand line of universal passion out of a confusion of +passions which all seem to be striking out in different directions: the fact +that this was a possible achievement I find demonstrated in every individual +act of a Wagnerian drama, which describes the individual history of various +characters side by side with a general history of the whole company. Even at +the very beginning we know we are watching a host of cross currents dominated +by one great violent stream; and though at first this stream moves unsteadily +over hidden reefs, and the torrent seems to be torn asunder as if it were +travelling towards different points, gradually we perceive the central and +general movement growing stronger and more rapid, the convulsive fury of the +contending waters is converted into one broad, steady, and terrible flow in the +direction of an unknown goal; and suddenly, at the end, the whole flood in all +its breadth plunges into the depths, rejoicing demoniacally over the abyss and +all its uproar. Wagner is never more himself than when he is overwhelmed with +difficulties and can exercise power on a large scale with all the joy of a +lawgiver. To bring restless and contending masses into simple rhythmic +movement, and to exercise one will over a bewildering host of claims and +desires—these are the tasks for which he feels he was born, and in the +performance of which he finds freedom. And he never loses his breath withal, +nor does he ever reach his goal panting. He strove just as persistently to +impose the severest laws upon himself as to lighten the burden of others in +this respect. Life and art weigh heavily upon him when he cannot play wit their +most difficult questions. If one considers the relation between the melody of +song and that of speech, one will perceive how he sought to adopt as his +natural model the pitch, strength, and tempo of the passionate man's voice in +order to transform it into art; and if one further considers the task of +introducing this singing passion into the general symphonic order of music, one +gets some idea of the stupendous difficulties he had to overcome. In this +behalf, his inventiveness in small things as in great, his omniscience and +industry are such, that at the sight of one of Wagner's scores one is almost +led to believe that no real work or effort had ever existed before his time. It +seems almost as if he too could have said, in regard to the hardships of art, +that the real virtue of the dramatist lies in self-renunciation. But he would +probably have added, There is but one kind of hardship— that of the +artist who is not yet free: virtue and goodness are trivial accomplishments. +</p> + +<p> +Viewing him generally as an artist, and calling to mind a more famous type, we +see that Wagner is not at all unlike Demosthenes: in him also we have the +terrible earnestness of purpose and that strong prehensile mind which always +obtains a complete grasp of a thing; in him, too, we have the hand's quick +clutch and the grip as of iron. Like Demosthenes, he conceals his art or +compels one to forget it by the peremptory way he calls attention to the +subject he treats; and yet, like his great predecessor, he is the last and +greatest of a whole line of artist-minds, and therefore has more to conceal +than his forerunners: his art acts like nature, like nature recovered and +restored. Unlike all previous musicians, there is nothing bombastic about him; +for the former did not mind playing at times with their art, and making an +exhibition of their virtuosity. One associates Wagner's art neither with +interest nor with diversion, nor with Wagner himself and art in general. All +one is conscious of is of the great <i>necessity</i> of it all. No one will +ever be able to appreciate what severity evenness of will, and self-control the +artist required during his development, in order, at his zenith, to be able to +do the necessary thing joyfully and freely. Let it suffice if we can appreciate +how, in some respects, his music, with a certain cruelty towards itself, +determines to subserve the course of the drama, which is as unrelenting as +fate, whereas in reality his art was ever thirsting for a free ramble in the +open and over the wilderness. +</p> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<p> +An artist who has this empire over himself subjugates all other artists, even +though he may not particularly desire to do so. For him alone there lies no +danger or stemming-force in those he has subjugated—his friends and his +adherents; whereas the weaker natures who learn to rely on their friends pay +for this reliance by forfeiting their independence. It is very wonderful to +observe how carefully, throughout his life, Wagner avoided anything in the +nature of heading a party, notwithstanding the fact that at the close of every +phase in his career a circle of adherents formed, presumably with the view of +holding him fast to his latest development He always succeeded, however, in +wringing himself free from them, and never allowed himself to be bound; for not +only was the ground he covered too vast for one alone to keep abreast of him +with any ease, but his way was so exceptionally steep that the most devoted +would have lost his breath. At almost every stage in Wagner's progress his +friends would have liked to preach to him, and his enemies would fain have done +so too—but for other reasons. Had the purity of his artist's nature been +one degree less decided than it was, he would have attained much earlier than +he actually did to the leading position in the artistic and musical world of +his time. True, he has reached this now, but in a much higher sense, seeing +that every performance to be witnessed in any department of art makes its +obeisance, so to speak, before the judgment-stool of his genius and of his +artistic temperament. He has overcome the most refractory of his +contemporaries; there is not one gifted musician among them but in his +innermost heart would willingly listen to him, and find Wagner's compositions +more worth listening to than his own and all other musical productions taken +together. Many who wish, by hook or by crook, to make their mark, even wrestle +with Wagner's secret charm, and unconsciously throw in their lot with the older +masters, preferring to ascribe their "independence" to Schubert or Handel +rather than to Wagner. But in vain! Thanks to their very efforts in contending +against the dictates of their own consciences, they become ever meaner and +smaller artists; they ruin their own natures by forcing themselves to tolerate +undesirable allies and friends And in spite of all these sacrifices, they still +find perhaps in their dreams, that their ear turns attentively to Wagner. These +adversaries are to be pitied: they imagine they lose a great deal when they +lose themselves, but here they are mistaken. +</p> + +<p> +Albeit it is obviously all one to Wagner whether musicians compose in his +style, or whether they compose at all, he even does his utmost to dissipate the +belief that a school of composers should now necessarily follow in his wake; +though, in so far as he exercises a direct influence upon musicians, he does +indeed try to instruct them concerning the art of grand execution. In his +opinion, the evolution of art seems to have reached that stage when the honest +endeavour to become an able and masterly exponent or interpreter is ever so +much more worth talking about than the longing to be a creator at all costs. +For, at the present stage of art, universal creating has this fatal result, +that inasmuch as it encourages a much larger output, it tends to exhaust the +means and artifices of genius by everyday use, and thus to reduce the real +grandeur of its effect. Even that which is good in art is superfluous and +detrimental when it proceeds from the imitation of what is best. Wagnerian ends +and means are of one piece: to perceive this, all that is required is honesty +in art matters, and it would be dishonest to adopt his means in order to apply +them to other and less significant ends. +</p> + +<p> +If, therefore, Wagner declines to live on amid a multitude of creative +musicians, he is only the more desirous of imposing upon all men of talent the +new duty of joining him in seeking the <i>law of style for dramatic +performances</i>. He deeply feels the need of establishing a <i>traditional +style</i> for his art, by means of which his work may continue to live from one +age to another in a pure form, until it reaches that <i>future</i> which its +creator ordained for it. +</p> + +<p> +Wagner is impelled by an undaunted longing to make known everything relating to +that foundation of a style, mentioned above, and, accordingly, everything +relating to the continuance of his art. To make his work—as Schopenhauer +would say— a sacred depository and the real fruit of his life, as well as +the inheritance of mankind, and to store it for the benefit of a posterity +better able to appreciate it,—these were <i>the supreme objects</i> of +his life, and for these he bore that crown of thorns which, one day, will shoot +forth leaves of bay. Like the insect which, in its last form, concentrates all +its energies upon the one object of finding a safe depository for its eggs and +of ensuring the future welfare of its posthumous brood,—then only to die +content, so Wagner strove with equal determination to find a place of security +for his works. +</p> + +<p> +This subject, which took precedence of all others with him, constantly incited +him to new discoveries; and these he sought ever more and more at the spring of +his demoniacal gift of communicability, the more distinctly he saw himself in +conflict with an age that was both perverse and unwilling to lend him its ear. +Gradually however, even this same age began to mark his indefatigable efforts, +to respond to his subtle advances, and to turn its ear to him. Whenever a small +or a great opportunity arose, however far away, which suggested to Wagner a +means wherewith to explain his thoughts, he availed himself of it: he thought +his thoughts anew into every fresh set of circumstances, and would make them +speak out of the most paltry bodily form. Whenever a soul only half capable of +comprehending him opened itself to him, he never failed to implant his seed in +it. He saw hope in things which caused the average dispassionate observer +merely to shrug his shoulders; and he erred again and again, only so as to be +able to carry his point against that same observer. Just as the sage, in +reality, mixes with living men only for the purpose of increasing his store of +knowledge, so the artist would almost seem to be unable to associate with his +contemporaries at all, unless they be such as can help him towards making his +work eternal. He cannot be loved otherwise than with the love of this eternity, +and thus he is conscious only of one kind of hatred directed at him, the hatred +which would demolish the bridges bearing his art into the future. The pupils +Wagner educated for his own purpose, the individual musicians and actors whom +he advised and whose ear he corrected and improved, the small and large +orchestras he led, the towns which witnessed him earnestly fulfilling the +duties of ws calling, the princes and ladies who half boastfully and half +lovingly participated in the framing of his plans, the various European +countries to which he temporarily belonged as the judge and evil conscience of +their arts,—everything gradually became the echo of his thought and of +his indefatigable efforts to attain to fruitfulness in the future. Although +this echo often sounded so discordant as to confuse him, still the tremendous +power of his voice repeatedly crying out into the world must in the end call +forth reverberations, and it will soon be impossible to be deaf to him or to +misunderstand him. It is this reflected sound which even now causes the +art-institutions of modern men to shake: every time the breath of his spirit +blew into these coverts, all that was overripe or withered fell to the ground; +but the general increase of scepticism in all directions speaks more eloquently +than all this trembling. Nobody any longer dares to predict where Wagner's +influence may not unexpectedly break out. He is quite unable to divorce the +salvation of art from any other salvation or damnation: wherever modern life +conceals a danger, he, with the discriminating eye of mistrust, perceives a +danger threatening art. In his imagination he pulls the edifice of modern +civilisation to pieces, and allows nothing rotten, no unsound timber-work to +escape: if in the process he should happen to encounter weather-tight walls or +anything like solid foundations, he immediately casts about for means wherewith +he can convert them into bulwarks and shelters for his art. He lives like a +fugitive, whose will is not to preserve his own life, but to keep a +secret— like an unhappy woman who does not wish to save her own soul, but +that of the child lying in her lap: in short, he lives like Sieglinde, "for the +sake of love." +</p> + +<p> +For life must indeed be full of pain and shame to one who can find neither rest +nor shelter in this world, and who must nevertheless appeal to it, exact things +from it, contemn it, and still be unable to dispense with the thing contemned, +—this really constitutes the wretchedness of the artist of the future, +who, unlike the philosopher, cannot prosecute his work alone in the seclusion +of a study, but who requires human souls as messengers to this future, public +institutions as a guarantee of it, and, as it were, bridges between now and +hereafter. His art may not, like the philosopher's, be put aboard the boat of +written documents: art needs <i>capable men</i>, not letters and notes, to +transmit it. Over whole periods in Wagner's life rings a murmur of +distress—his distress at not being able to meet with these capable +interpreters before whom he longed to execute examples of his work, instead of +being confined to written symbols; before whom he yearned to practise his art, +instead of showing a pallid reflection of it to those who read books, and who, +generally speaking, therefore are not artists. +</p> + +<p> +In Wagner the man of letters we see the struggle of a brave fighter, whose +right hand has, as it were, been lopped off, and who has continued the contest +with his left. In his writings he is always the sufferer, because a temporary +and insuperable destiny deprives him of his own and the correct way of +conveying his thoughts—that is to say, in the form of apocalyptic and +triumphant examples. His writings contain nothing canonical or severe: the +canons are to be found in his works as a whole. Their literary side represents +his attempts to understand the instinct which urged him to create his works and +to get a glimpse of himself through them. If he succeeded in transforming his +instincts into terms of knowledge, it was always with the hope that the reverse +process might take place in the souls of his readers—it was with this +intention that he wrote. Should it ultimately be proved that, in so doing, +Wagner attempted the impossible, he would still only share the lot of all those +who have meditated deeply on art; and even so he would be ahead of most of them +in this, namely, that the strongest instinct for all arts harboured in him. I +know of no written aesthetics that give more light than those of Wagner; all +that can possibly be learnt concerning the origin of a work of art is to be +found in them. He is one of the very great, who appeared amongst us a witness, +and who is continually improving his testimony and making it ever clearer and +freer; even when he stumbles as a scientist, sparks rise from the ground. Such +tracts as "Beethoven," "Concerning the Art of Conducting," "Concerning Actors +and Singers," "State and Religion," silence all contradiction, and, like sacred +reliquaries, impose upon all who approach them a calm, earnest, and reverential +regard. Others, more particularly the earlier ones, including "Opera and +Drama," excite and agitate one; their rhythm is so uneven that, as prose they +are bewildering. Their dialectics is constantly interrupted, and their course +is more retarded than accelerated by outbursts of feeling; a certain reluctance +on the part of the writer seems to hang over them like a pall, just as though +the artist were somewhat ashamed of speculative discussions. What the reader +who is only imperfectly initiated will probably find most oppressive is the +general tone of authoritative dignity which is peculiar to Wagner, and which is +very difficult to describe: it always strikes me as though Wagner were +continually <i>addressing enemies</i>; for the style of all these tracts more +resembles that of the spoken than of the written language, hence they will seem +much more intelligible if heard read aloud, in the presence of his enemies, +with whom he cannot be on familiar terms, and towards whom he must therefore +show some reserve and aloofness, The entrancing passion of his feelings, +however, constantly pierces this intentional disguise, and then the stilted and +heavy periods, swollen with accessary words, vanish, and his pen dashes off +sentences, and even whole pages, which belong to the best in German prose. But +even admitting that while he wrote such passages he was addressing friends, and +that the shadow of his enemies had been removed for a while, all the friends +and enemies that Wagner, as a man of letters, has, possess one factor in +common, which differentiates them fundamentally from the "people" for whom he +worked as an artist. Owing to the refining and fruitless nature of their +education, they are quite <i>devoid of the essential traits of the national +character</i>, and he who would appeal to them must speak in a way which is not +of the people—that is to say, after the manner of our best prose-writers +and Wagner himself; though that he did violence to himself in writing thus is +evident. But the strength of that almost maternal instinct of prudence in him, +which is ready to make any sacrifice, rather tends to reinstall him among the +scholars and men of learning, to whom as a creator he always longed to bid +farewell. He submits to the language of culture and all the laws governing its +use, though he was the first to recognise its profound insufficiency as a means +of communication. +</p> + +<p> +For if there is anything that distinguishes his art from every other art of +modern times, it is that it no longer speaks the language of any particular +caste, and refuses to admit the distinctions "literate" and "illiterate." It +thus stands as a contrast to every culture of the Renaissance, which to this +day still bathes us modern men in its light and shade. Inasmuch as Wagner's art +bears us, from time to time, beyond itself, we are enabled to get a general +view of its uniform character: we see Goethe and Leopardi as the last great +stragglers of the Italian philologist-poets, Faust as the incarnation of a most +unpopular problem, in the form of a man of theory thirsting for life; even +Goethe's song is an imitation of the song of the people rather than a standard +set before them to which they are expected to attain, and the poet knew very +well how truly he spoke when he seriously assured his adherents: "My +compositions cannot become popular; he who hopes and strives to make them so is +mistaken." +</p> + +<p> +That an art could arise which would be so clear and warm as to flood the base +and the poor in spirit with its light, as well as to melt the haughtiness of +the learned—such a phenomenon had to be experienced though it could not +be guessed. But even in the mind of him who experiences it to-day it must upset +all preconceived notions concerning education and culture; to such an one the +veil will seem to have been rent in twain that conceals a future in which no +highest good or highest joys exist that are not the common property of all. The +odium attaching to the word "common" will then be abolished. +</p> + +<p> +If presentiment venture thus into the remote future, the discerning eye of all +will recognise the dreadful social insanity of our present age, and will no +longer blind itself to the dangers besetting an art which seems to have roots +only in the remote and distant future, and which allows its burgeoning branches +to spread before our gaze when it has not yet revealed the ground from which it +draws its sap. How can we protect this homeless art through the ages until that +remote future is reached? How can we so dam the flood of a revolution seemingly +inevitable everywhere, that the blessed prospect and guarantee of a better +future—of a freer human life—shall not also be washed away with all +that is destined to perish and deserves to perish? +</p> + +<p> +He who asks himself this question shares Wagner's care: he will feel himself +impelled with Wagner to seek those established powers that have the goodwill to +protect the noblest passions of man during the period of earthquakes and +upheavals. In this sense alone Wagner questions the learned through his +writings, whether they intend storing his legacy to them—the precious +Ring of his art—among their other treasures. And even the wonderful +confidence which he reposes in the German mind and the aims of German politics +seems to me to arise from the fact that he grants the people of the Reformation +that strength, mildness, and bravery which is necessary in order to divert "the +torrent of revolution into the tranquil river-bed of a calmly flowing stream of +humanity": and I could almost believe that this and only this is what he meant +to express by means of the symbol of his Imperial march. +</p> + +<p> +As a rule, though, the generous impulses of the creative artist and the extent +of his philanthropy are too great for his gaze to be confined within the limits +of a single nation. His thoughts, like those of every good and great German, +are <i>more than German</i>, and the language of his art does not appeal to +particular races but to mankind in general. +</p> + +<p> +<i>But to the men of the future</i>. +</p> + +<p> +This is the belief that is proper to him; this is his torment and his +distinction. No artist, of what past soever, has yet received such a remarkable +portion of genius; no one, save him, has ever been obliged to mix this +bitterest of ingredients with the drink of nectar to which enthusiasm helped +him. It is not as one might expect, the misunderstood and mishandled artist, +the fugitive of his age, who adopted this faith in self-defence: success or +failure at the hands of his contemporaries was unable either to create or to +destroy it Whether it glorified or reviled him, he did not belong to this +generation: that was the conclusion to which his instincts led him. And the +possibility of any generation's ever belonging to him is something which he who +disbelieves in Wagner can never be made to admit. But even this unbeliever may +at least ask, what kind of generation it will be in which Wagner will recognise +his "people," and in which he will see the type of all those who suffer a +common distress, and who wish to escape from it by means of an art common to +them all. Schiller was certainly more hopeful and sanguine; he did not ask what +a future must be like if the instinct of the artist that predicts it prove +true; his command to every artist was rather— +</p> + +<p> +Soar aloft in daring flight Out of sight of thine own years! In thy mirror, +gleaming bright, Glimpse of distant dawn appears. +</p> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<p> +May blessed reason preserve us from ever thinking that mankind will at any time +discover a final and ideal order of things, and that happiness will then and +ever after beam down upon us uniformly, like the rays of the sun in the +tropics. Wagner has nothing to do with such a hope; he is no Utopian. If he was +unable to dispense with the belief in a future, it only meant that he observed +certain properties in modern men which he did not hold to be essential to their +nature, and which did not seem to him to form any necessary part of their +constitution; in fact, which were changeable and transient; and that precisely +<i>owing to these properties</i> art would find no home among them, and he +himself had to be the precursor and prophet of another epoch. No golden age, no +cloudless sky will fall to the portion of those future generations, which his +instinct led him to expect, and whose approximate characteristics may be +gleaned from the cryptic characters of his art, in so far as it is possible to +draw conclusions concerning the nature of any pain from the kind of relief it +seeks. Nor will superhuman goodness and justice stretch like an everlasting +rainbow over this future land. Belike this coming generation will, on the +whole, seem more evil than the present one—for in good as in evil it will +be more <i>straightforward</i>. It is even possible, if its soul were ever able +to speak out in full and unembarrassed tones, that it might convulse and +terrify us, as though the voice of some hitherto concealed and evil spirit had +suddenly cried out in our midst. Or how do the following propositions strike +our ears?—That passion is better than stocism or hypocrisy; that +straightforwardness, even in evil, is better than losing oneself in trying to +observe traditional morality; that the free man is just as able to be good as +evil, but that the unemancipated man is a disgrace to nature, and has no share +in heavenly or earthly bliss; finally, that all who wish to be free must become +so through themselves, and that freedom falls to nobody's lot as a gift from +Heaven. However harsh and strange these propositions may sound, they are +nevertheless reverberations from that future world, which <i>is verily in need +of art</i>, and which expects genuine pleasure from its presence; they are the +language of nature—<i>reinstated</i> even in mankind; they stand for what +I have already termed correct feeling as opposed to the incorrect feeling that +reigns to-day. +</p> + +<p> +But real relief or salvation exists only for nature not for that which is +contrary to nature or which arises out of incorrect feeling. When all that is +unnatural becomes self-conscious, it desires but one thing—nonentity; the +natural thing, on the other hand, yearns to be transfigured through love: the +former would fain <i>not</i> be, the latter would fain be <i>otherwise</i>. Let +him who has understood this recall, in the stillness of his soul, the simple +themes of Wagner's art, in order to be able to ask himself whether it were +nature or nature's opposite which sought by means of them to achieve the aims +just described. +</p> + +<p> +The desperate vagabond finds deliverance from his distress in the compassionate +love of a woman who would rather die than be unfaithful to him: the theme of +the Flying Dutchman. The sweet-heart, renouncing all personal happiness, owing +to a divine transformation of Love into Charity, becomes a saint, and saves the +soul of her loved one: the theme of Tannhauser. The sublimest and highest thing +descends a suppliant among men, and will not be questioned whence it came; +when, however, the fatal question is put, it sorrowfully returns to its higher +life: the theme of Lohengrin. The loving soul of a wife, and the people +besides, joyfully welcome the new benevolent genius, although the retainers of +tradition and custom reject and revile him: the theme of the Meistersingers. Of +two lovers, that do not know they are loved, who believe rather that they are +deeply wounded and contemned, each demands of the other that he or she should +drink a cup of deadly poison, to all intents and purposes as an expiation of +the insult; in reality, however, as the result of an impulse which neither of +them understands: through death they wish to escape all possibility of +separation or deceit. The supposed approach of death loosens their fettered +souls and allows them a short moment of thrilling happiness, just as though +they had actually escaped from the present, from illusions and from life: the +theme of Tristan and Isolde. +</p> + +<p> +In the Ring of the Nibelung the tragic hero is a god whose heart yearns for +power, and who, since he travels along all roads in search of it, finally binds +himself to too many undertakings, loses his freedom, and is ultimately cursed +by the curse inseparable from power. He becomes aware of his loss of freedom +owing to the fact that he no longer has the means to take possession of the +golden Ring—that symbol of all earthly power, and also of the greatest +dangers to himself as long as it lies in the hands of his enemies. The fear of +the end and the twilight of all gods overcomes him, as also the despair at +being able only to await the end without opposing it. He is in need of the free +and fearless man who, without his advice or assistance—even in a struggle +against gods—can accomplish single-handed what is denied to the powers of +a god. He fails to see him, and just as a new hope finds shape within him, he +must obey the conditions to which he is bound: with his own hand he must murder +the thing he most loves, and purest pity must be punished by his sorrow. Then +he begins to loathe power, which bears evil and bondage in its lap; his will is +broken, and he himself begins to hanker for the end that threatens him from +afar off. At this juncture something happens which had long been the subject of +his most ardent desire: the free and fearless man appears, he rises in +opposition to everything accepted and established, his parents atone for having +been united by a tie which was antagonistic to the order of nature and usage; +they perish, but Siegfried survives. And at the sight of his magnificent +development and bloom, the loathing leaves otan's soul, and he follows the +hero's history with the eye of fatherly love and anxiety. How he forges his +sword, kills the dragon, gets possession of the ring, escapes the craftiest +ruse, awakens Brunhilda; how the curse abiding in the ring gradually overtakes +him; how, faithful in faithfulness, he wounds the thing he most loves, out of +love; becomes enveloped in the shadow and cloud of guilt, and, rising out of it +more brilliantly than the sun, ultimately goes down, firing the whole heavens +with his burning glow and purging the world of the curse,—all this is +seen by the god whose sovereign spear was broken in the contest with the freest +man, and who lost his power through him, rejoicing greatly over his own defeat: +full of sympathy for the triumph and pain of his victor, his eye burning with +aching joy looks back upon the last events; he has become free through love, +free from himself. +</p> + +<p> +And now ask yourselves, ye generation of to-day, Was all this composed <i>for +you</i>? Have ye the courage to point up to the stars of the whole of this +heavenly dome of beauty and goodness and to say, This is our life, that Wagner +has transferred to a place beneath the stars? +</p> + +<p> +Where are the men among you who are able to interpret the divine image of Wotan +in the light of their own lives, and who can become ever greater while, like +him, ye retreat? Who among you would renounce power, knowing and having learned +that power is evil? Where are they who like Brunhilda abandon their knowledge +to love, and finally rob their lives of the highest wisdom, "afflicted love, +deepest sorrow, opened my eyes"? and where are the free and fearless, +developing and blossoming in innocent egoism? and where are the Siegfrieds, +among you? +</p> + +<p> +He who questions thus and does so in vain, will find himself compelled to look +around him for signs of the future; and should his eye, on reaching an unknown +distance, espy just that "people" which his own generation can read out of the +signs contained in Wagnerian art, he will then also understand <i>what Wagner +will mean to this people</i>—something that he cannot be to all of us, +namely, not the prophet of the future, as perhaps he would fain appear to us, +but the interpreter and clarifier of the past. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON, PART I ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> +<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> + +</html> diff --git a/5652-h/images/ludovici.png b/5652-h/images/ludovici.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c2db63 --- /dev/null +++ b/5652-h/images/ludovici.png |
