delighted with the aphorism on the hazard of marriage (Aphorism 150).
But why do you not _dig_ deeper here? You speak somewhere with a
certain reverence of marriage, which by implying an emotional ideal has
idealised emotion--here, however, you are more blunt and forcible.
Why not for once say the _full_ truth about it? I am of opinion that
the institution of marriage, which may have been very useful in taming
brutes, causes more misery to mankind than even the Church has done.
Church, monarchy, marriage, property, these are to my mind four old
venerable institutions which mankind will have to reform _from the
foundations_ in order to be able to breathe freely. And of these
marriage alone kills the individuality, paralyses liberty and is the
embodiment of a paradox. But the shocking thing about it is that
humanity is still too coarse to be able to shake it off. The most
emancipated writers, so called, still speak of marriage with a devout
and virtuous air which maddens me. And they gain their point, since it
is impossible to say what one could put in its place for the mob. There
is nothing else to be done but slowly to transform opinion. What do you
think about it?
I should like very much to hear how it is with your eyes. I was glad to
see how plain and clear your writing is.
Externally, I suppose, you lead a calm and peaceful life down there?
Mine is a life of conflict which wears one out. In these realms I
am even more hated now than I was seventeen years ago; this is not
pleasant in itself, though it is gratifying in so far as it proves to
me that I have not yet lost my vigour nor come to terms on any point
with sovereign mediocrity.
Your attentive and grateful reader,
GEORGE BRANDES.
8. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.
_Nice_, March 27, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
I should much have liked to thank you before this for so rich and
thoughtful a letter: but my health has been troubling me, so that I
have fallen badly into arrears with all good things. In my eyes, I
may say in passing, I have a dynamometer for my general state; since
my health in the main has once more improved, they have become
stronger than I had ever believed possible--they have put to shame the
prophecies of the very best German oculists. If Messieurs Gräfe _et hoc
genus omne_ had turned out right, I should long ago have been blind. As
it is, I have come to No. 3 spectacles--bad enough!--_but I still see_.
I speak of this worry because you were sympathetic enough to inquire
about it, and because during the last few weeks my eyes have been
particularly weak and irritable.
I feel for you in the North, now so wintry and gloomy; how does one
manage to keep one's soul erect there? I admire almost every man who
does not lose faith in himself under a cloudy sky, to say nothing
of his faith in "humanity," in "marriage," in "property," in the
"State." ... In Petersburg I should be a nihilist: here I believe as
a plant believes, in the sun. The sun of Nice--you cannot call that
a prejudice. We have had it at the expense of all the rest of Europe.
God, with the cynicism peculiar to him, lets it shine upon us idlers,
"philosophers" and sharpers more brightly than upon the far worthier
military heroes of the "Fatherland."
But then, with the instinct of the Northerner, you have chosen the
strongest of all stimulants to help you to endure life in the North:
war, the excitement of aggression, the Viking raid. I divine in
your writings the practised soldier; and not only "mediocrity," but
perhaps especially the more independent or individual characters of
the Northern mind may be constantly challenging you to fight. How much
of the "parson," how much theology is still left behind in all this
idealism!... To me it would be still worse than a cloudy sky, to have
to make oneself angry over things _which do not concern one_.
So much for this time; it is little enough. Your _German Romanticism_
has set me thinking, how this whole movement actually only reached
its goal as music (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Weber, Wagner, Brahms); as
literature it remained a great promise. The French were more fortunate.
I am afraid I am too much of a musician not to be a romanticist.
Without music life to me would be a mistake.
With cordial and grateful regards I remain, dear Sir,
Yours,
NIETZSCHE.
9. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.
_Copenhagen_, April 3, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
You have called the postman the medium of ill-mannered invasions. That
is very true as a rule, and should be _sat. sapienti_ not to trouble
you. I am not an intruder by nature, so little in fact that I lead an
almost isolated life, am indeed loth to write letters and, like all
authors, loth to write at all.
Yesterday, however, when I had received your letter and taken up one of
your books, I suddenly felt a sort of vexation at the idea that nobody
here in Scandinavia knew anything about you, and I soon determined to
make you known at a stroke. The newspaper cutting will tell you that
(having just finished a series of lectures on Russia) I am announcing
fresh lectures on your writings. For many years I have been obliged to
repeat all my lectures, as the University cannot hold the audiences;
that is not likely to be the case this time, as your name is so
absolutely new, but the people who will come and get an impression of
your works will not be of the dullest.
As I should very much like to have an idea of your appearance, _I beg
you to give me a portrait of yourself_. I enclose my last photograph.
I would also ask you to tell me quite briefly when and where you
were born and in what years you published (or better, wrote) your
works, as they are not dated. If you have any newspaper that contains
these details, there will be no need to write. I am an unmethodical
person and possess neither dictionaries of authors nor other books of
reference in which your name might be found.
The youthful works--the _Thoughts out of Season_--have been very useful
to me. How young you were and enthusiastic, how frank and naïve I
There is much in the maturer books that I do not yet understand; you
appear to me often to hint at or generalise about entirely intimate,
personal data, giving the reader a beautiful casket without the key.
But most of it I understand. I was enchanted by the youthful work on
Schopenhauer; although personally I owe little to Schopenhauer, it
seemed to speak to me from the soul.
One or two pedantic corrections: _Joyful Wisdom_, p. 116. The words
quoted are not Chamfort's last, they are to be found in his _Caractères
et Anecdotes_: dialogue between M. D. and M. L. in explanation of the
sentence: _Peu de personnes et pen de choses m'intéressent, mais rien
ne m'intéresse moins que moi_. The concluding words are: en vivant et
_en voyant les hommes, il faut que le cour se brise ou se bronze_.
On p. 118 you speak of the elevation "in which Shakespeare places
Cæsar." I find Shakespeare's Cæsar pitiable. An act of high treason.
And this glorification of the miserable fellow whose only achievement
was to plunge a knife into a great man!
_Human, all-too-Human_, II, p. 59. A holy lie. "It is the only holy lie
that has become famous." No, Desdemona's last words are perhaps still
more beautiful and just as famous, often quoted in Germany at the time
when Jacobi was writing on Lessing. Am I not right?
These trifles are only to show you that I read you attentively. Of
course, there are very different matters that I might discuss with you,
but a letter is not the place for them.
If you read Danish, I should like to send you a handsomely got-up
little book on Holberg, which will appear in a week. Let me know
whether you understand our language. If you read Swedish, I call your
attention to Sweden's only genius, August Strindberg. When you write
about women you are very like him.
I hope you will have nothing but good to tell me of your eyes.
Yours sincerely,
GEORGE BRANDES.
10. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.
_Torino (Italia) ferma in posta_, April 10, 1888.
But, my dear Sir, what a surprise is this!--Where have you found the
courage to propose to speak in public of a _vir obscurissimus_?...
Do you imagine that I am known in the beloved Fatherland? They treat
me there as if I were something singular and absurd, something that
for the present need not be _taken seriously_.... Evidently they have
an inkling that I do not take them seriously either: and how could
I, nowadays, when "German intellect" has become a _contradictio in
adjecto_!--My best thanks for the photograph. Unfortunately I have
none to send in return: my sister, who is married and lives in South
America, took with her the last portraits I possessed.
Enclosed is a little _vita_, the first I have ever written.
As regards the dates of composition of the different books, they are to
be found on the back of the cover of _Beyond Good and Evil_. Perhaps
you no longer have this cover.
_The Birth of Tragedy_ was written between the summer of 1870 and the
winter of 1871 (finished at Lugano, where I was living with the family
of Field-Marshal Moltke).
The _Thoughts out of Season_ between 1872 and the summer of 1875 (there
were to have been thirteen; luckily my health said No!).
What you say about Schopenhauer as Educator gives me great pleasure.
This little work serves me as a touchstone; he to whom it says nothing
personal has probably nothing to do with me either. In reality it
contains the whole plan according to which I have hitherto lived; it is
a rigorous promise.
_Human, all-too-Human_, with its two continuations, summer of
1876-1879. _The Dawn of Day_, 1880. _The Joyful Wisdom_, January 1882.
_Zarathustra_, 1883-1885 (each part in about ten days. Perfect state
of "inspiration." All conceived in the course of rapid walks: absolute
certainty, as though each sentence were shouted to one. While writing
the book, the greatest physical elasticity and sense of power).
_Beyond Good and Evil_, summer of 1885 in the Upper Engadine and the
following winter at Nice.
_The Genealogy_ decided on, carried out and sent ready for press to the
printer at Leipzig, all between July 10 and 30, 1887. (Of course there
are also _philologica_ of mine, but they do not concern you and me.)
I am now making an experiment with Turin; I shall stay here till June
5 and then go to the Engadine. The weather so far is wintry, harsh and
unpleasant. But the town superbly calm and favourable to my instincts.
The finest pavement in the world.
Sincere greetings from
Yours gratefully,
NIETZSCHE.
A pity I understand neither Danish nor Swedish.
_Vita_.--I was born on October 15, 1844, on the battlefield of Lützen.
The first name I heard was that of Gustavus Adolphus. My ancestors
were Polish noblemen (Niëzky); it seems the type has been well
maintained, in spite of three generations of German mothers. Abroad I
am usually taken for a Pole; this very winter the visitors' list at
Nice entered me _comme Polonais_. I am told my head occurs in Matejko's
pictures. My grandmother belonged to the Schiller-Goethe circles of
Weimar; her brother was Herder's successor in the position of General
Superintendent at Weimar. I had the good fortune to be a pupil of the
venerable Pforta School, from which so many who have made a name in
German literature have proceeded (Klopstock, Fichte, Schlegel, Ranke,
etc., etc.). We had masters who would have (or have) done honour to any
university. I studied at Bonn, afterwards at Leipzig; old Ritschl, then
the first philologist in Germany, singled me out almost from the first.
At twenty-two I was a contributor to the _Litterarisches Centralblatt_
(Zarncke). The foundation of the Philological Society of Leipzig, which
still exists, is due to me. In the winter of 1868-1869 the University
of Basle offered me a professorship; I was as yet not even a Doctor.
The University of Leipzig afterwards conferred the doctor's degree on
me, in a very honourable way, without any examination, and even without
a dissertation. From Easter 1869 to 1879 I was at Basle; I was obliged
to give up my rights as a German subject, since as an officer (Horse
Artillery) I should have been called up too frequently and my academic
duties would have been interfered with. I am none the less master
of two weapons, the sabre and the cannon--and perhaps of a third as
well.... At Basle everything went very well, in spite of my youth; it
sometimes happened, especially with candidates for the doctor's degree,
that the examinee was older than the examiner.
I had the great good fortune to form a cordial friendship with Jakob
Burkhardt, an unusual thing with that very hermit-like and secluded
thinker. A still greater piece of good fortune was that from the
earliest days of my Basle existence an indescribably close intimacy
sprang up between me and Richard and Cosima Wagner, who were then
living on their estate of Triebschen, near Lucerne, as though on an
island, and were cut off from all former ties. For some years we had
everything, great and small, in common, a confidence without bounds.
(You will find printed in Volume VII of Wagner's complete works a
"message" to me, referring to _The Birth of Tragedy_.) As a result
of these relations I came to know a large circle of persons (and
"personesses"), in fact pretty nearly everything that grows between
Paris and Petersburg. By about 1876 my health became worse. I then
spent a winter at Sorrento, with my old friend, Baroness Meysenbug
(_Memoirs of an Idealist_) and the sympathetic Dr. Rée. There was
no improvement. I suffered from an extremely painful and persistent
headache, which exhausted all my strength. This went on for a number
of years, till it reached such a climax of habitual suffering, that at
that time I had 200 days of torment in the year. The trouble must have
been due entirely to local causes, there is no neuropathic basis for
it of any sort. I have never had a symptom of mental disturbance; not
even of fever, nor of fainting. My pulse was at that time as slow as
that of the first Napoleon (= 60). My speciality was to endure extreme
pain, _cru, vert_, with perfect clarity, for two or three consecutive
days, accompanied by constant vomiting of bile. The report has been
put about that I was in a madhouse (and indeed that I died there).
Nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact my intellect
only came to maturity during that terrible time: witness the _Dawn of
Day_, which I wrote in 1881 during a winter of incredible suffering at
Genoa, away from doctors, friends or relations. This book serves me as
a sort of "dynamometer": I composed it with a minimum of strength and
health. From 1882 on I went forward again, very slowly, it is true:
the crisis was past (my father died very young, just at the age at
which I was myself so near to death). I have to use extreme care even
to-day; certain conditions of a climatic and meteorological order are
indispensable to me. It is not from choice but from necessity that I
spend the summer in the Upper Engadine and the winter at Nice.... After
all, my illness has been of the greatest use to me: it has released
me, it has restored to me the courage to be myself.... And, indeed, in
virtue of my instincts, I am a brave animal, a military one even. The
long resistance has somewhat exasperated my pride. Am I a philosopher,
do you ask?--But what does that matter!...
11. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.
_Copenhagen_, April 29, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
The first time I lectured on your works, the hall was not quite full,
an audience of perhaps a hundred and fifty, since no one knew who and
what you are. But as an important newspaper reported my first lecture,
and as I have myself written an article on you, interest was roused,
and next time the hall was full to bursting. Some three hundred people
listened with the greatest attention to my exposition of your works.
Nevertheless, I have not ventured to repeat the lectures, as has been
my practice for many years, since the subject is hardly of a popular
nature. I hope the result will be to get you some good readers in the
North.
Your books now stand on one of my shelves, very handsomely bound. I
should be very glad to possess everything you have published.
When, in your first letter, you offered me a musical work of yours, a
_Hymn to Life_, I declined the gift from modesty, being no great judge
of music. Now I think I have deserved the work through my interest in
it and should be much obliged if you would have it sent to me.
I believe I may sum up the impression of my audience in the feeling of
a young painter, who said to me: "What makes this so interesting is
that it has not to do with books, _but with life_." If any objection is
taken to your ideas, it is that they are "too out-and-out."
It was unkind of you not to send me a photograph; I really only sent
mine to put you under an obligation. It is so little trouble to sit to
a photographer for a minute or two, and one knows a man far better when
one has an idea of his appearance.
Yours very sincerely,
GEORGE BRANDES.
12. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.
_Turin_, May 4, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
What you tell me gives me great pleasure and--let me confess it--still
more surprise. Be sure I shall owe you for it: you know, hermits are
not given to forgetting.
Meanwhile I hope my photograph will have reached you. It goes without
saying that I took steps, not exactly to be photographed (for I am
extremely distrustful of haphazard photographs), but to abstract a
photograph from somebody who had one of me. Perhaps I have succeeded; I
have not yet heard. If not, I shall avail myself of my next visit to
Munich (this autumn probably) to be taken again.
_The Hymn to Life_ will start on its journey to Copenhagen one of
these days. We philosophers are never more grateful than when we are
mistaken for artists. I am assured, moreover, by the best judges that
the Hymn is thoroughly fit for performance, singable, and sure in its
effect (--clear in form; this praise gave me the greatest pleasure).
Mottl, the excellent court conductor at Carlsruhe (the conductor of
the Bayreuth festival performances, you know), has given me hopes of a
performance.
I have just heard from Italy that the point of view of my second
_Thought out of Season_ has been very honourably mentioned in a survey
of German literature contributed by the Viennese scholar, Dr. von
Zackauer, at the invitation of the _Archivio storico_ of Florence. He
concludes his paper with it.
These last weeks at Turin, where I shall stay till June 5, have turned
out better than any I have known for years, above all more philosophic.
Almost every day for one or two hours I have reached such a pitch of
energy as to be able to view my whole conception from top to bottom;
so that the immense multiplicity of problems lies spread out beneath
me, as though in relief and clear in its outlines. This requires a
maximum of strength, for which I had almost given up hope. It all hangs
together; years ago it was already on the right course; one builds
one's philosophy like a beaver, one is forced to and does not know
it: but one has to _see_ all this, as I have now seen it, in order to
believe it.
I am so relieved, so strengthened, in such good humour--I hang a little
farcical tail on to the most serious things. What is the reason of all
this? Have I not the good _north winds_ to thank for it, the north
winds which do not always come from the Alps?--they come now and then
even from _Copenhagen_!
With greetings,
Your gratefully devoted,
NIETZSCHE.
13. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.
_Turin_, May 23, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
I should not like to leave Turin without telling you once more what a
great share you have had in my first _successful_ spring. The history
of my springs, for the last fifteen years at least, has been, I must
tell you, a tale of horror, a fatality of decadence and infirmity.
Places made no difference; it was as though no prescription, no diet,
no climate could change the essentially depressing character of this
time of year. But behold, Turin! And the first good news, _your_ news,
my dear Sir, which proved to me that I am alive.... For I am sometimes
apt to forget that I am alive. An accident, a question reminded me the
other day that one of life's leading ideas is positively quenched in
me, the idea of the _future_. No, wish, not the smallest cloudlet of a
wish before me! A bare expanse! Why should not a day from my seventieth
year be exactly like my day to-day? Have I lived too long in proximity
to death to be able any longer to open my eyes to fair possibilities.
--But certain it is that I now limit myself to thinking from day to
day--that I settle to-day what is to be done to-morrow--and not for
a single day beyond it! This may be irrational, unpractical, perhaps
also unchristian--that preacher on the Mount forbade this very "taking
thought for the morrow"--but it seems to me in the highest degree
philosophical. I gained more respect for myself than I had before:--I
understood that I had unlearnt how to wish, without even wanting to do
so.
These weeks I have employed in "transvaluing values."--You understand
this trope?--After all, the alchemist is the most deserving kind of
man there is! I mean the man who makes of what is base and despised
something valuable, even gold. He alone confers wealth, the others
merely give change. My problem this time is rather a curious one: I
have asked myself what hitherto has been best hated, feared, despised
by mankind--and of that and nothing else I have made my "gold"....
If only I am not accused of false-coining! Or rather; that is what will
happen.
Has my photograph reached you? My mother has shown me the great
kindness of relieving me from the appearance of ungratefulness in
such a special case. It is to be hoped the Leipzig publisher, E. W.
Fritzsch, has also done his duty and sent off the Hymn.
In conclusion I confess to a feeling of curiosity. As it was denied me
to listen at the crack of the door to learn something about myself,
I should like to hear something in another way. Three words to
characterise the subjects of your different lectures--how much should I
learn from three words!
With cordial and devoted greetings,
Your
NIETZSCHE.
14. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.
_Copenhagen_ May 23, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
For letter, portrait and music I send you my best thanks. The letter
and the music were an unqualified pleasure, the portrait might have
been better. It is a profile taken at _Naumburg_, characteristic in its
attitude, but with too little expression. You _must_ look different
from this; the writer of _Zarathustra_ must have many more secrets
written in his own face.
I concluded my lectures on Fr. Nietzsche before Whitsuntide. They
ended, as the papers say, in applause "which took the form of an
ovation." The ovation is yours almost entirely. I take the liberty of
communicating it to you herewith in writing. For I can only claim the
credit of reproducing, clearly and connectedly, and intelligibly to a
Northern audience, what you had originated.
I also tried to indicate your relation to various contemporaries,
to introduce my hearers into the workshop of your thought, to put
forward my own favourite ideas, where they coincided with yours,
to define the points on which I differed from you, and to give a
psychological portrait of Nietzsche the author. Thus much I may say
without exaggeration: your name is now very popular in all intelligent
circles in Copenhagen, and all over Scandinavia it is at least _known_.
You have nothing to thank me for; it has been a _pleasure_ to me to
penetrate into the world of your thoughts. My lectures are not worth
printing, as I do not regard pure philosophy as my special province and
am unwilling to print anything dealing with a subject in which I do not
feel sufficiently competent.
I am very glad you feel so invigorated physically and so well disposed
mentally. Here, after a long winter, we have mild spring weather. We
are rejoicing in the first green leaves and in a very well-arranged
Northern exhibition that has been opened at Copenhagen. All the French
artists of eminence (painters and sculptors) are also exhibiting here.
Nevertheless, I am longing to get away, but have to stay.
But this cannot interest you. I forgot to tell you: if you do not know
the Icelandic sagas, you must study them. You will find there a great
deal to confirm your hypotheses and theories about the morality of a
master race.
In one trifling detail you seem to have missed the mark. _Gothic_ has
certainly nothing to do with _good_ or _God_. It is connected with
giessen, he who emits the seed, and means stallion, man.
On the other hand, our philologists here think your suggestion of
_bonus--duonus_ is much to the point.
I hope that in future we shall never become entirely strangers to one
another.
I remain your faithful reader and admirer,
GEORGE BRANDES.
15. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES. (Post-card.)
_Turin_, May 27, 1888.