the longest; I was uncertain (and am sometimes so still) whether one
could not get at the dangerous conception of "artist"--a conception
hitherto treated with unpardonable leniency--from this point of view.
Falsity with a good conscience; delight in dissimulation breaking forth
as power, pushing aside, overflowing, and sometimes extinguishing
the so-called "character"; the inner longing to play a rôle, to
assume a mask, to put on an _appearance;_ a surplus of capacity for
adaptations of every kind, which can no longer gratify themselves in
the service of the nearest and narrowest utility: all that perhaps
does not pertain _solely_ to the actor in himself?... Such an instinct
would develop most readily in families of the lower class of the
people, who have had to pass their lives in absolute dependence, under
shifting pressure and constraint, who (to accommodate themselves to
their conditions, to adapt themselves always to new circumstances)
had again and again to pass themselves off and represent themselves
as different persons,--thus having gradually qualified themselves to
adjust the mantle to _every_ wind, thereby almost becoming the mantle
itself, as masters of the embodied and incarnated art of eternally
playing the game of hide and seek, which one calls _mimicry_ among the
animals:--until at last this ability, stored up from generation to
generation, has become domineering, irrational and intractable, till as
instinct it begins to command the other instincts, and begets the actor
and "artist" (the buffoon, the pantaloon, the Jack-Pudding, the fool,
and the clown in the first place, also the classical type of servant,
Gil Blas: for in such types one has the precursors of the artist, and
often enough even of the "genius"). Also under higher social conditions
there grows under similar pressure a similar species of men: only the
histrionic instinct is there for the most part held strictly in check
by another instinct, for example, among "diplomatists";--for the rest,
I should think that it would always be open to a good diplomatist to
become a good actor on the stage, provided his dignity "allowed" it. As
regards the _Jews,_ however, the adaptable people _par excellence,_ we
should, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them
a world-wide historical institution at the very first, for the rearing
of actors, a proper breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question
is very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is _not--_a
Jew? The Jew also, as a born literary man, as the actual ruler of the
European press, exercises this power on the basis of his histrionic
capacity: for the literary man is essentially an actor,--he plays the
part of "expert," of "specialist."--Finally _women._ If we consider
the whole history of women, are they not _obliged_ first of all, and
above all to be actresses? If we listen to doctors who have hypnotised
women, or, finally, if we love them--and let ourselves be "hypnotised"
by them--what is always divulged thereby? That they "give themselves
airs," even when they--"give themselves." ... Woman is so artistic ...
362.
_My Belief in the Virilising of Europe._--We owe it to Napoleon (and
not at all to the French Revolution, which had in view the "fraternity"
of the nations, and the florid interchange of good graces among people
generally) that several warlike centuries, which have not had their
like in past history, may now follow one another--in short, that we
have entered upon _the classical age of war,_ war at the same time
scientific and popular, on the grandest scale (as regards means,
talents and discipline), to which all coming millenniums will look back
with envy and awe as a work of perfection:--for the national movement
out of which this martial glory springs, is only the counter_-choc_
against Napoleon, and would not have existed without him. To him,
consequently, one will one day be able to attribute the fact that
_man_ in Europe has again got the upper hand of the merchant and the
Philistine; perhaps even of "woman" also, who has become pampered owing
to Christianity and the extravagant spirit of the eighteenth century,
and still more owing to "modern ideas." Napoleon, who saw in modern
ideas, and accordingly in civilisation, something like a personal
enemy, has by this hostility proved himself one of the greatest
continuators of the Renaissance: he has brought to the surface a whole
block of the ancient character, the decisive block perhaps, the block
of granite. And who knows but that this block of ancient character
will in the end get the upper hand of the national movement, and will
have to make itself in a _positive_ sense the heir and continuator of
Napoleon:--who, as one knows, wanted _one_ Europe, which was to be
_mistress of the world._--
363.
_How each Sex has its Prejudice about Love.--_Notwithstanding all the
concessions which I am inclined to make to the monogamie prejudice, I
will never admit that we should speak of _equal_ rights in the love
of man and woman: there are no such equal rights. The reason is that
man and woman understand something different by the term love,--and it
belongs to the conditions of love in both sexes that the one sex does
_not_ presuppose the same feeling, the same conception of "love," in
the other sex. What woman understands by love is clear enough: complete
surrender (not merely devotion) of soul and body, without any motive,
without any reservation, rather with shame and terror at the thought
of a devotion restricted by clauses or associated with conditions. In
this absence of conditions her love is precisely a _faith:_ woman has
no other.--Man, when he loves a woman, _wants_ precisely this love from
her; he is consequently, as regards himself, furthest removed from the
prerequisites of feminine love; granted, however, that there should
also be men to whom on their side the demand for complete devotion is
not unfamiliar,--well, they are really--not men. A man who loves like a
woman becomes thereby a slave; a woman, however, who loves like a woman
becomes thereby a _more perfect_ woman. ... The passion of woman in its
unconditional renunciation of its own rights presupposes in fact that
there does _not_ exist on the other side an equal _pathos,_ an equal
desire for renunciation: for if both renounced themselves out of love,
there would result--well, I don't know what, perhaps a _horror vacui?_
Woman wants to be taken and accepted as a possession, she wishes to be
merged in the conceptions of "possession" and "possessed"; consequently
she wants one who _takes,_ who does not offer and give himself away,
but who reversely is rather to be made richer in "himself"--by the
increase of power, happiness and faith which the woman herself gives
to him. Woman gives herself, man takes her.--I do not think one will
get over this natural contrast by any social contract, or with the very
best will to do justice, however desirable it may be to avoid bringing
the severe, frightful, enigmatical, and unmoral elements of this
antagonism constantly before our eyes. For love, regarded as complete,
great, and full, is nature, and as nature, is to all eternity something
"unmoral."_--Fidelity_ is accordingly included in woman's love, it
follows from the definition thereof; with man fidelity _may_ readily
result in consequence of his love, perhaps as gratitude or idiosyncrasy
of taste, and so-called elective affinity, but it does not belong
to the _essence_ of his love--and indeed so little, that one might
almost be entitled to speak of a natural opposition between love and
fidelity in man, whose love is just a desire to possess, and _not_ a
renunciation and giving away; the desire to possess, however, comes
to an end every time with the possession.... As a matter of fact it
is the more subtle and jealous thirst for possession in a man (who is
rarely and tardily convinced of having this "possession"), which makes
his love continue; in that case it is even possible that his love may
increase after the surrender,--he does not readily own that a woman has
nothing more to "surrender" to him.--
364.
_The Anchorite Speaks._--The art of associating with men rests
essentially on one's skilfulness (which presupposes long exercise) in
accepting a repast, in taking a repast, in the cuisine of which one has
no confidence. Provided one comes to the table with the hunger of a
wolf everything is easy "the worst society gives thee _experience_"--
Mephistopheles says; but one has not always this wolf's-hunger when
one needs it! Alas! how difficult are our fellow-men to digest!
First principle: to stake one's courage as in a misfortune, to seize
boldly, to admire oneself at the same time, to take one's repugnance
between one's teeth, to cram down one's disgust. Second principle:
to "improve" one's fellow-man, by praise for example, so that he may
begin to sweat out his self-complacency; or to seize a tuft of his good
or "interesting" qualities, and pull at it till one gets his whole
virtue out, and can put him under the folds of it. Third principle:
self-hypnotism. To fix one's eye on the object of one's intercourse as
on a glass knob, until, ceasing to feel pleasure or pain thereat, one
falls asleep unobserved, becomes rigid, and acquires a fixed pose: a
household recipe used in married life and in friendship, well tested
and prized as indispensable, but not yet scientifically formulated. Its
proper name is--patience.--
365.
_The Anchorite Speaks once more._--We also have intercourse with "men,"
we also modestly put on the clothes in which people know us (_as
such,_) respect us and seek us; and we thereby mingle in society, that
is to say, among the disguised who do not wish to be so called; we also
do like a prudent masqueraders, and courteously dismiss all curiosity
which has not reference merely to our "clothes" There are however other
modes and artifices for "going about" among men and associating with
them: for example, as a ghost,-which is very advisable when one wants
to scare them, and get rid of them easily. An example: a person grasps
at us, and is unable to seize us. That frightens him. Or we enter by
a closed door. Or when the lights are extinguished. Or after we are
dead The latter is the artifice of _posthumous_ men _par excellence._
("What?" said such a one once impatiently, "do you think we should
delight in enduring this strangeness, coldness, death-stillness about
us, all this subterranean, hidden, dim, undiscovered solitude, which
is called life with us, and might just as well be called death, if we
were not conscious of what _will arise_ out of us,--and that only after
our death shall we attain to _our_ life and become living, ah! very
living! we posthumous men!"--)
366.
_At the Sight of a Learned Book._--We do not belong to those who only
get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,--it is
our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or
dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where
even the paths become thoughtful. Our first question concerning the
value of a book, a man, or a piece of music is: Can it walk? or still
better: Can it dance?... We seldom read; we do not read the worse
for that--oh, how quickly we divine how a person has arrived at his
thoughts:--if it is by sitting before an ink-bottle with compressed
belly and head bent over the paper: oh, how quickly we are then done
with his book! The constipated bowels betray themselves, one may wager
on it, just as the atmosphere of the room, the ceiling of the room, the
smallness of the room, betray themselves.--These were my feelings when
closing a straightforward, learned book, thankful, very thankful, but
also relieved.... In the book of a learned man there is almost always
something oppressive and oppressed: the "specialist" comes to light
somewhere, his ardour, his seriousness, his wrath, his over-estimation
of the nook in which he sits and spins, his hump--every specialist has
his hump. A learned book also always mirrors a distorted soul: every
trade distorts. Look at our friends again with whom we have spent
our youth, after they have taken possession of their science: alas!
how the reverse has always taken place! Alas! how they themselves
are now for ever occupied and possessed by their science! Grown into
their nook, crumpled into unrecognisability, constrained, deprived
of their equilibrium, emaciated and angular everywhere, perfectly
round only in one place,--we are moved and silent when we find them
so. Every handicraft, granting even that it has a golden floor,[3]
has also a leaden ceiling above it, which presses and presses on the
soul, till it is pressed into a strange and distorted shape. There is
nothing to alter here. We need not think that it is at all possible
to obviate this disfigurement by any educational artifice whatever.
Every kind of _perfection_ is purchased at a high price on earth, where
everything is perhaps purchased too dear; one is an expert in one's
department at the price of being also a victim of one's department.
But you want to have it otherwise--"more reasonable," above all more
convenient--is it not so, my dear contemporaries? Very well! But then
you will also immediately get something different: instead of the
craftsman and expert, you will get the literary man, the versatile,
"many-sided "littérateur, who to be sure lacks the hump--not taking
account of the hump or bow which he makes before you as the shopman
of the intellect and the "porter" of culture--, the littérateur, who
_is_ really nothing, but "represents" almost everything: he plays
and "represents" the expert, he also takes it upon himself in all
modesty _to see that he is_ paid, honoured and celebrated in this
position.--No, my learned friends! I bless you even on account of
your humps! And also because like me you despise the littérateurs
and parasites of culture! And because you do not know how to make
merchandise of your intellect! And have so many opinions which cannot
be expressed in money value! And because you do not represent anything
which you _are_ not! Because your sole desire is to become masters
of your craft; because you reverence every kind of mastership and
ability, and repudiate with the most relentless scorn everything of a
make-believe, half-genuine, dressed-up, virtuoso, demagogic, histrionic
nature in _litteris et artibus_--all that which does not convince you
by its absolute _genuineness_ of discipline and preparatory training,
or cannot stand your test! (Even genius does not help a person to get
over such a defect, however well it may be able to deceive with regard
to it: one understands this if one has once looked closely at our most
gifted painters and musicians,--who almost without exception, can
artificially and supplementarily appropriate to themselves (by means
of artful inventions of style, make-shifts, and even principles),
the _appearance_ of that genuineness, that solidity of training and
culture; to be sure, without thereby deceiving themselves, without
thereby imposing perpetual silence on their bad consciences. For
you know of course that all great modern artists suffer from bad
consciences?...)
[3] An allusion to the German Proverb, "Handwerk hat einen goldenen
Boden."--TR.
367.
_How one has to Distinguish first of all in Works of Art--_Everything
that is thought, versified, painted and composed, yea, even built and
moulded, belongs either to monologic art, or to art before witnesses.
Under the latter there is also to be included the apparently monologic
art which involves the belief in God, the whole lyric of prayer;
because for a pious man there is no solitude,--we, the godless, have
been the first to devise this invention. I know of no profounder
distinction in all the perspective of the artist than this: Whether he
looks at his growing work of art (at "himself--") with the eye of the
witness; or whether he "has forgotten the world," as is the essential
thing in all monologic art,--it rests _on forgetting,_ it is the music
of forgetting.
368.
_The Cynic Speaks.--_My objections to Wagner's music are physiological
objections. Why should I therefore begin by disguising them Under
æsthetic formulæ? My "point" is that I can no longer breathe freely
when this music begins to operate on me; my _foot_ immediately becomes
indignant at it and rebels: for what it needs is time, dance and
march; it demands first of all from music the ecstasies which are in
_good_ walking, striding, leaping and dancing. But do not my stomach,
my heart, my blood and my bowels also protest? Do I not become hoarse
unawares under its influence? And then I ask myself what my body really
_wants_ from music generally. I believe it wants to have _relief:_
so that all animal functions should be accelerated by means of light,
bold, unfettered, self-assured rhythms; so that brazen, leaden life
should be gilded by means of golden, good, tender harmonies. My
melancholy would fain rest its head in the hiding-places and abysses
of _perfection:_ for this reason I need music. What do I care for the
drama! What do I care for the spasms of its moral ecstasies, in which
the "people" have their satisfaction! What do I care for the whole
pantomimic hocus-pocus of the actor!... It will now be divined that I
am essentially anti-theatrical at heart,--but Wagner on the contrary,
was essentially a man of the stage and an actor, the most enthusiastic
mummer-worshipper that has ever existed, even among musicians!... And
let it be said in passing that if Wagner's theory was that "drama is
the object, and music is only the means to it,"--his _practice_ on the
contrary from beginning to end has been to the effect that "attitude
is the object, drama and even music can never be anything else but
means to _this._" Music as a means of elucidating, strengthening and
intensifying dramatic poses and the actor's appeal to the senses, and
Wagnerian drama only an opportunity for a number of dramatic attitudes!
Wagner possessed, along with all other instincts, the dictatorial
instinct of a great actor in all and everything, and as has been said,
also as a musician.--I once made this clear with some trouble to a
thorough-going Wagnerian, and I had reasons for adding:--"Do be a
little more honest with yourself: we are not now in the theatre. In
the theatre we are only honest in the mass; as individuals we lie,
we belie even ourselves. We leave ourselves at home when we go to the
theatre; we there renounce the right to our own tongue and choice, to
our taste, and even to our courage as we possess it and practise it
within our own four walls in relation to God and man. No one takes his
finest taste in art into the theatre with him, not even the artist
who works for the theatre: there one is people, public, herd, woman,
Pharisee, voting animal, democrat, neighbour, and fellow-creature;
there even the most personal conscience succumbs to the levelling
charm of the 'great multitude'; there stupidity operates as wantonness
and contagion; there the neighbour rules, there one _becomes_ a
neighbour...." (I have forgotten to mention what my enlightened
Wagnerian answered to my physiological objections: "So the fact is that
you are really not healthy enough for our music?"--)
369.
_Juxtapositions in us._--Must we not acknowledge to ourselves, we
artists, that there is a strange discrepancy in us; that on the one
hand our taste, and on the other hand our creative power, keep apart in
an extraordinary manner, continue apart, and have a separate growth;--I
mean to say that they have entirely different gradations and _tempi_ of
age, youth, maturity, mellowness and rottenness? So that, for example,
a musician could all his life create things which _contradicted_
all that his ear and heart, spoilt for listening, prized, relished
and preferred:--he would not even require to be aware of the
contradiction! As an almost painfully regular experience shows, a
person's taste can easily outgrow the taste of his power, even without
the latter being thereby paralysed or checked in its productivity. The
reverse, however, can also to some extent take place,--and it is to
this especially that I should like to direct the attention of artists.
A constant producer, a man who is a "mother" in the grand sense of the
term, one who no longer knows or hears of anything except pregnancies
and child-beds of his spirit, who has no time at all to reflect and
make comparisons with regard to himself and his work, who is also no
longer inclined to exercise his taste, but simply forgets it, letting
it take its chance of standing, lying or falling,--perhaps such a man
at last produces works _on which he is then quite unfit to pass a
judgment:_ so that he speaks and thinks foolishly about them and about
himself. This seems to me almost the normal condition with fruitful
artists,--nobody knows a child worse than its parents--and the rule
applies even (to take an immense example) to the entire Greek world of
poetry and art, which was never "conscious" of what it had done....
370.