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!" [5]
[5] 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.[6]
[6] 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.