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diff --git a/old/5652.txt b/old/5652.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9dcef36 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/5652.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6028 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thoughts out of Season (Part One) +by Friedrich Nietzsche +(#4 in our series by Friedrich Nietzsche) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Thoughts out of Season (Part One) + +Author: Friedrich Nietzsche + +Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5652] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 4, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON (PART ONE) *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Holden McGroin. + + + Thoughts Out Of Season - Part One + by Friedrich Nietzsche + + + + THE COMPLETE WORKS + + OF + + FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE + + The First Complete and Authorised English Translation + + EDITED BY + + DR. OSCAR LEVY + + VOLUME ONE + + THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON + + PART ONE + _________________________________________________________________ + + Of the First Impression of + One Thousand Copies + this is + + No. 1 + + FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE + + THOUGHTS + OUT OF SEASON + + PART I + + DAVID STRAUSS, THE CONFESSOR + AND THE WRITER + + RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH + + TRANSLATED BY + + ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI + _________________________________________________________________ + + CONTENTS. + + EDITORIAL NOTE + + NIETZSCHE IN ENGLAND (BY THE EDITOR) + + TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO DAVID STRAUSS AND RICHARD WAGNER IN + REUTH + + DAVID STRAUSS, THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER + + RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH + _________________________________________________________________ + + EDITORIAL NOTE. + _______ + +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. + +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 à l'Eau de Cologne--they +would require the natural, strong, real Teacher, and would prefer his +outspoken words to the finely-chiselled sentences of the raconteur. 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. + +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. + +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 Zarathustra +abstruse, the Ecce Homo conceited, and the Antichrist violent. He +should rather begin with the little pamphlet on Education, the +Thoughts out of Season, Beyond Good and Evil, or the Genealogy of +Morals. 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. + _________________________________________________________________ + + NIETZSCHE IN ENGLAND: + + AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE EDITOR. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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."[6]* + +[Footnote * : It is a comfort to the afflicted to have companions in +their distress.] + +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. + +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 democratic offspring, 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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Tancred: "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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +OSCAR LEVY. + +LONDON, January 1909. + _________________________________________________________________ + + TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. + +To the reader who knows Nietzsche, who has studied his Zarathustra and +understood it, and who, in addition, has digested the works entitled +Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, The Twilight of the +Idols, and The Antichrist,-- 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. + +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 The Will to Power: "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 David +Strauss, the Confessor and Writer (1873). + +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 +(erbärmliches Behagen) 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. + +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 Ecce Homo, 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 Thought out of Season, 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. + +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 Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung; 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. + +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 + +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 real but still subconscious opinion of his +hero, may even be content to regard his later attitude as the result +of a complete volte-face, 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. + +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? + +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. + +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, Nietzsche's Ethik; 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. + +For some years their friendship continued firm, and grew ever more and +more intimate. The Birth Of Tragedy 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. + +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. + +While writing Ecce Homo, he was so well aware of the extent to which +he had gone in idealising his friend, that he even felt able to say: +"Wagner in Bayreuth 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 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, Wagner in Bayreuth: 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). + +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 Birth of Tragedy +and Wagner in Bayreuth 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. + +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 The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche +contra Wagner 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 volte-face and his uncontrollable +recantations and revulsions of feeling have completely overlooked this +aspect of the question. + +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. + +Finally, we should just like to give one more passage from Ecce Homo +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. + +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). + + ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. + _________________________________________________________________ + + DAVID STRAUSS, + + THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER. + + DAVID STRAUSS + _______ + + I. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +If however, it be permitted to grow and to spread, if it be spoilt by +the flattering and nonsensical assurance that it 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! + +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 abuse +of success 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? + +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. + +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 +per se"; 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. + +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. + +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, it is a long time since they were barbarians." + + II. + +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 +Philistines of Culture. + +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. + +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 tutti unisono 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, that they were seekers, 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." + +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. + +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. + +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 omnium gatherum 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. + +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 "nil admirari." 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. + +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 satisfait 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. + +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.[7]* + +[Footnote * : 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.] + +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. + + III. + +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 The Old Faith +and the New 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 unisono 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. + +"But what do I see? Is it a shadow? Is it reality? How long and broad +my poodle grows!" + +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." + +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. + + IV. + +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. + +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, à la 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." + +"Here is our man!" cries the Philistine exultingly, who reads this: +"for this is exactly how we live; it is indeed our daily life."[8]* +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!" + +[Footnote * : This alludes to a German student-song.] + +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 Spener or the National Gazette +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 tout-ensemble 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? + +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 Wanderjahre "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, tamquam re bene gesta, 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!" + + V. + +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. + +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 Eroica, 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." + + VI. + +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. + +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! + +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 General History of the +Heavens of the Year 1755 as of "a work which has always appeared to me +not less important than his later Critique of Pure Reason. 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 Critique of Pure +Reason 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 sub specie +biennii, 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. + +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 but a +vicious attitude of mind, 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. + +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. 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" (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. + +"The Persians call it bidamag buden, The Germans say +'Katzenjammer.'"[9]* + +[Footnote * : Remorse for the previous night's excesses.--Translator's +note.] + +Strauss quotes this himself, and is not ashamed. As for us, we turn +aside for a moment, that we may overcome our loathing. + + VII. + +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 +Katzenjammer? 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 bellum +omnium contra omnes 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. + +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 Man 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. + +"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? + +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. + +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 perpetual error, 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 +rationale 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. + +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 Système de la Nature; 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. + + VIII. + +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? + +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 religions book +for scholars. 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. + +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. This is also his attitude +towards culture. He behaves as if life to him were not only otium but +sine dignitate: 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 wherefore, +the whence, and the whither 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? + +For it 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. + +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? + +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: +In spite of it all, he is still a classical writer! + +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. + + IX. + +"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, totum +ponere? + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 he 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). + +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"? + +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. + +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:-- + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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." + + X. + +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 simplicity in style; 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. + +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 lightly equipped! 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." + +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 my genius 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, the real Straussian Genius. 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. + +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. + + XI. + +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 every +really productive thing is offensive. 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 really 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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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.'" + +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. + +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!" + +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." + + XII. + +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 Di meliora! 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!" [10]* + +[Footnote * : Translator's note.--Nietzsche here proceeds to quote +those passages he has culled from The Old and the New Faith 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.] + +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. + +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 "that amount of subjective truth which is compatible with a +complete lack of objective demonstration"--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.[11]* + +[Footnote * : 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.] + _______ + + RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. + + I. + +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. + +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." + +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! + +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 lofty look necessary to +view the event at Bayreuth; and only upon this look depends the great +future of the event. + +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. + + II. + +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. + +The dramatic element in Wagner's development 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. + +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? + +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 Fidelity--unselfish fidelity. 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. + + III. + +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. + +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 talent for acquiring knowledge, +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." + +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? + +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 improving that part of the +world which has been recognised as still susceptible to change. 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 from his versatile spirit works as complete as his +were, which bade him suffer and learn, that he might accomplish such +works. + + IV. + +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 anti-Alexanders 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 to +bind it after it has been loosed. 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 +astringent power. 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 Simplifier of +the Universe. 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? + +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. + +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 to +prevent the bow from snapping. + +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 having a sense for the tragic. +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 that his sense for the tragic may not die out. 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. + + V. + +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. + +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 correct feeling, 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, through their art, +nature transformed into love makes its voice heard. + +Let us regard this as one 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 agreeable 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 mistake others, it is only out of courtesy, and +with the hope that they, in their turn, should mistake us." + +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? + +By means of these souls music gives expression to the longing that it +feels for the company of its natural ally, gymnastics--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 declared enemy of art 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. + +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 incorrect feeling 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. + + VI. + +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 nil admirari 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 mind is present at all +to-day;--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 preparatorily +apologetic 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 + +Against what accusers? one asks, surprised. + +Against its own bad conscience. + +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 +want to be enlightened, but dazzled. They rather hate light --more +particularly when it is thrown on themselves. + +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!" + +It is the voice of Wagner's art 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 least deserves to hear it, though it +perhaps need it most? 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. + + VII. + +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 that he has felt strange and embarrassed in the +presence of his own soul 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 magnetism 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 +through him and to him. 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.e. 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 vice versa. 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 dithyrambic dramatist, 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 +in the presence of the realistic that our eyes began to see, 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. Clear-sighted and +prudent, loving and unselfish 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: thus Nature, in trying to conceal herself, unveils the +character of her contradictions. 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. + + VIII. + +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 power and glory. 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 grand opera 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 metier 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. + +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 revolutionist of society; Wagner recognised the only +artistic element that ever existed hitherto--the poetry of the people. +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? + +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 +many Wagners 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. + +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. + +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; what desires he still possessed turned in the +direction of the latest philosophical views. 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 opus metaphysicum 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: friends 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. + +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 a tradition of style, 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 the idea of Bayreuth. 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 selfless +fidelity, and changed by this light into indescribable joy. + +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. + + IX. + +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. + +Wagner's poetic 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 divine 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. + +That is why all Wagner's efforts were concentrated upon the one object +of discovering those means which best served the purpose of +distinctness, 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. + +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 +necessity 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. + + X. + +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. + +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. + +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 law of style for +dramatic performances. He deeply feels the need of establishing a +traditional style 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 +future which its creator ordained for it. + +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 the supreme objects 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. + +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." + +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 capable men, 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. + +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 addressing enemies; 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 devoid of the +essential traits of the national character, 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. + +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." + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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 more than German, and the +language of his art does not appeal to particular races but to mankind +in general. + +But to the men of the future. + +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-- + +Soar aloft in daring flight Out of sight of thine own years! In thy +mirror, gleaming bright, Glimpse of distant dawn appears. + + XI. + +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 owing to these properties 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 straightforward. 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 is verily in need of art, and which expects genuine +pleasure from its presence; they are the language of +nature--reinstated even in mankind; they stand for what I have already +termed correct feeling as opposed to the incorrect feeling that reigns +to-day. + +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 not be, the latter +would fain be otherwise. 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. + +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. + +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. + +And now ask yourselves, ye generation of to-day, Was all this composed +for you? 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? + +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? + +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 what Wagner will mean to this +people--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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON (PART ONE) *** + +This file should be named 5652.txt or 5652.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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