But what shall be said of those to whom, despite a thorough desire to do
so, one cannot apply those appellations even in the sense which is
attributed to them by the feeble human tongue?--What shall be said of
the ordinary, commonplace, second-rate, third-rate toilers--whoever they
may be--statesmen, learned men, artists--especially artists? How force
them to shake off their dumb indolence, their dejected perplexity, how
draw them once more to the field of battle, if once the thought as to
the vanity of everything human, of every activity which sets for itself
a higher aim than the winning of daily bread, has once crept into their
heads? By what wreaths are they lured on--they, for whom laurels and
thorns have become equally insignificant? Why should they again subject
themselves to the laughter of “the cold throng” or to “the condemnation
of the dunce,”--of the old dunce who cannot forgive them for having
turned away from the former idols; of the young dunce who demands that
they shall immediately go down on their knees in his company, that they
should lie prone before new, just-discovered idols? Why shall they
betake themselves again to that rag-fair of phantoms, to that
market-place where both the seller and the buyer cheat each other
equally, where everything is so noisy, so loud--and yet so poor and
worthless? Why “with exhaustion in their bones” shall they interweave
themselves again with that world where the nations, like peasant urchins
on a festival day, flounder about in the mud for the sake of a handful
of empty nuts, or admire with gaping mouths the wretched woodcuts,
decorated with tinsel gold,--with that world where they had no right to
life while they lived in it, and, deafening themselves with their own
shouts, each one hastens with convulsive speed to a goal which he
neither knows nor understands? No ... no.... It is enough ... enough ...
enough!