In the evening, at the inn, I played without knowing it in the presence of a famous orchestra conductor, who stood there afterwards gasping with wonder and said all sorts of nice things to me. He also begged me to join his choral society that evening—a thing I did not do. Instead I drove back and was invited to dine with the Schnabel family. They are nice, good people. Mrs. Schnabel is delightful, and her husband is a decent, pious, conservative business man. They have the most excellent food, and the drinks are even better, but their dishes are different from ours. They eat Gruyère cheese and Pumpernickel bread three times a day...Now, good-bye, good-bye! Hearty remembrances to Aunt Rosalie. Your FRITZ.
Nietzsche To His Mother and Sister - November, 1864 Bonn, November 10, 1864. DEAR MAMMA AND LIZZIE: On Sunday we were en masse in Sieburg, where we marched through the streets cheering, danced, and returned rather late. An hour ago I was at an exceedingly distinguished concert; it was an extraordinary display of wealth. All the ladies were dressed in bright red,The fashionable colour at the time. E.F.N. and English was spoken all over the hall; I don't speak English.The words in italics are in English in the original.—Translator. Admittance cost three marks, but as I am one of the performers it cost me nothing. But to make up for things I went there dressed as smartly as possible, with a white waistcoat and kid gloves. I seem to write an inordinate number of letters, and yet I get none except from you. Have Gersdorff and Kuttig been to see you? Remember me to them and also to the dear Naumburg aunts. Ever with devotion and love. Your FRITZ.
Nietzsche To His Mother and Sister - February, 1865 Bonn, End of February, 1865. Saturday. MY DEAR MAMMA AND LIZZIE: The lovely time of the holidays draws ever nearer, and I must confess that my longing to see you again grows keener every day. You might shortly start making the preparations for my arrival, for I shall be with you soon after the middle of next month. The more disagreeable the weather is now, the more do I like to dwell upon the beautiful days at Easter, and naturally I have never felt so happy at the thought of the holidays as I feel now. How delightful life will seem for me in your dear company, compared with the life I lead here, so destitute of all family associations! In addition to that, I shall be near so many dear friends, and to dear old Pforta, to which we old Pforta boys are so absurdly attached.
I imagine the whole of this passage will make you feel a little wistful; but unfortunately I must dissipate this mood for you by referring to the inevitable and irksome question of money. Among other things now I am going to the most desperate efforts to make two ends meet, and, like the Treasury, on drawing up my budget for the year I arrive only at the most hopeless results. Among the financial coups I have in view is the plan of moving out of my present lodgings next term, giving up the hire of a piano in order—to put it quite plainly—to cut down expenses. One learns a tremendous lot in one term, even in the realm of material things; but it is a pity that one has to pay so dearly for these lessons. But now I will close these pathetic and bathetic details by begging you, dear Mamma, to send me the money for the next two months in a lump sum of not less than 240 marks, to include my railway fare. Altogether I am not in favour of monthly instalments; they inevitably lead one into debt. Up to the present I have only been in a position to settle the most pressing debts of the previous month by means of these monthly instalments and have scarcely ever had any cash in hand. Generally speaking, it is quite out of the question for me to hope to get on at Bonn on less than 1,200 marks, and that was the amount my guardian promised me at the beginning of my university life. If you only knew how we live here you would understand this. It is the minimum amount possible in the circumstances.
So now I have said all I had to say on this matter, although I know perfectly well that it will not please you any more than it pleases me. Why can't I settle all this direct with my guardian? These things spoil my beautiful letters! And now let me beg of you once more not to fail me and thus plunge me into difficulties from which I could and should have to extricate myself only by borrowing the money in some way.
And now let us banish all care from our brow and chat pleasantly for a while. The things I have to tell you naturally accumulate more and more every day...I pass here among the students, etc., as something of an authority on music, and as a queer customer into the bargain, like all old Pforta boys in the Franconia.The Franconia was the Students Corps that Nietzsche joined.—Translator. I am not disliked at all, although I am apt to scoff a little and am considered as somewhat ironical. This estimate of my character, according to the opinions of other people, will not be without interest to you. For my part I must add that I do not agree to the first particular, that I am frequently unhappy and that I have too many moods and am rather inclined to be a nagging spirit (Qutilgeist) not only to myself, but also to others.
And now good-bye! For Heaven's sake send me the money in good time, and remember me to our dear relatives. With hearty thanks for your nice letters and begging you still to think kindly of me in spite of this one, FRIEDBICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - May, 1865 Bonn, May 25, 1865. DEAR FRIEND: To begin with, I must own that I have been simply longing for your first letter from Göttingen, not only out of friendship, but also because of its psychological interest. I was hoping that it might reflect the impression just made upon you by the life led in the Students Corps, and I felt certain that you would speak out quite frankly on the subject.
Now, this is precisely what you have done, and I thank you most heartily. At present, therefore, I share your excellent brother's views on this matter; I can only admire the moral strength with which you have plunged into dirty muddy water and even exercised your limbs in it, in order to learn to swim in the stream of life. Pardon the cruelty of the metaphor, but I think it meets the case.
Besides, there is this important point to remember: if a man wishes to understand his age and his contemporaries, he must be something of a colour student. Societies and associations, together with the tendencies they represent, generally reveal with almost perfect exactitude the type of the next generation of men. Moreover, the question of the reorganization of the circumstances of student life is urgent enough to deter the individual from investigating and judging the conditions from his own particular experience. Of course, we must take care that we ourselves do not become too deeply influenced during the process of our research; for habit exercises a prodigious power. A man has already lost a good deal when he can no longer feel any moral indignation at the reprehensible actions daily perpetrated in his circle. This is true, for instance, of drink and drunkenness, and also of the disrespect and scorn with which other men and other opinions are treated.
I readily admit that, up to a point, I had very much the same experiences as yourself, that the spirit of conviviality on drinking evenings often discomfited me exceedingly, that there were fellows whose "beer materialism" made them utterly repulsive to me; whilst the appalling arrogance with which in a twinkling men and opinions were disposed of en masse used to irritate me beyond endurance. Nevertheless I was content to bear with the Association, not only because it taught me a good deal, but also because I was, on the whole, compelled to acknowledge the intellectual life which formed a part of it. On the whole, though, a more intimate relationship with one or two friends is a necessity, and, provided one can enjoy this, the rest can be reckoned as a sort of seasoning included in the fare—some as salt and pepper, others as sugar, and yet others as nothing at all.
Once again let me assure you that all you have told me about your struggles and anxieties only enhances my esteem and love for you.
This term I have to prepare our archaeological work for the college. Then I also have a bigger piece of work to do for the Science evening of our Burschenschaft [Corps] about the political poets of Germany. I hope to learn a good deal from this, but I shall also have to do a tremendous amount of reading and collect plenty of material. Above all, however, I must set about preparing a more important philological work, the subject of which I have not yet decided, in order to qualify for admittance to the college at Leipzig.
Incidentally I am now studying Beethoven's Life in the biography by Marx. I shall also perhaps do a little composing again, a thing which this year I have so far strenuously avoided. I have also stopped versifying. The Rhineland Musical Festival takes place this Whitsun at Cologne. Do come over from Göttingen for it! The principal items on the programme are: Israel in Egypt, by Handel; Faust Music, by Schumann; The Seasons, by Haydn, etc., etc. I am taking part in it. Immediately after it the Cologne International Exhibit will be opened. You will find all further details in the papers.
Well, old man, fare thee well!
I rejoice at the thought of our next meeting. I wish you plenty of good cheer and bright spirits, and, above all, a man who can be something to you. Excuse my execrable writing and my ill humour about it. You know how wild I get over it and how my thoughts then come to a standstill.
Your devoted friend, FR. NIETZSCHE. Bonn, Ascension Day, 1865.
Nietzsche To His Mother - June, 1865 Bonn, June 30, 1865. Friday Morning. DEAR MAMMA: I am very much disgusted by the bigoted Roman Catholic population here. Often I can scarcely believe that we are in the nineteenth century. Not long ago it was Corpus Christi Day. Processions after the style of that of the Church Festival; everybody very finely got up and therefore full of vanity, and yet going into all kinds of pious contortions, croaking and groaning old women, tremendous squandering of incense, wax candles, and festoons of flowers. On the afternoon of the same day a genuine Tyrolean company gave a concert with the usual affected naturalness and the stereotyped emotions in the rendering of the Andreas HoferThis refers to Andreas Hofer, who led the rising of the Tyrolese against Napoleon in 1809. He was ultimately delivered into the hands of the French by a traitor, and Napoleon ordered him to be shot.—Translator. song.
You will have read in the papers about the Rhineland festival. As everybody knows, the Rhineland was annexed to Prussia fifty years ago. The King, the General Staff, and several Ministers attended the ceremony. The papers speak of the enthusiasm and rejoicing of the people. As I was in Cologne at the time, I can form my own estimate of these rejoicings. I was amazed by such coldness on the part of the masses. But I really cannot see where the enthusiasm for the King and his Ministers should come from at this particular juncture. All the same, externally the ceremony was extremely imposing. The Rhine, the bridge over it, the innumerable hotels on the banks, the towers, and the mighty cathedral all ablaze with illuminations, a continuous deafening boom of guns and muskets, myriads of fireworks all let off at the same time at various points all these seen from the opposite bank produced an almost magical impression. It would be impossible to imagine a finer effect for an opera. The King in a steamer sailed up and down stream in the midst of it all; the youth of Cologne created enthusiasm by singing the Düppel marchIt was at Duppel that the decisive battle was fought between the Germans and the Danes (April, 1864).; the masses cheered at the sight of such fine things, and the monarch was well pleased. I saw some fine uniforms there, my dear Lizzie. But the old generals who wore these beautiful clothes strolled through the streets smiling good-naturedly; for they had happily survived the Düppel engagement of a copious dinner and were all very drunk with victory.
Not long ago we—that is to say, the Franconians—had a Commers-This is the name given to a bibulous meeting of a German students Association.—Translator. with two other student associations, the Helvetia and the Marchia. Oh! what bliss! Oh! the marvellous exploits of the Students Association! Do we represent the future of Germany? Are we not the nursery of German parliaments? "It is some times difficult," says Juvenal, "to refrain from writing a satire."
I think I have already told you that we have changed the colours in our caps. We now wear fine red south-westers, with gold braid and broad black chin straps.
Remember me to dear Lizzie and all our relatives and friends.
Your affectionate FRITZ.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - April, 1866 Naumburg, April 7, 1866. DEAR FRIEND: Now and again one enjoys hours of peaceful reflection when, with mingled gladness and sorrow, one seems to hover over one's life just as those lovely summer days, so exquisitely described by Emerson, seem to lie stretched out at ease above the hilltops. It is then, as he says, that Nature is perfect, and we feel the same; then we are free from the spell of the ever vigilant will; then we are nothing but a pure, contemplative and dispassionate eye.This remark reveals Schopenhauerian influence.—Translator. It is in a mood such as this—a mood desirable above all others—that I take up my pen to reply to your kind and thoughtful letter. The interests we share have become welded together to the smallest particle; once again we have realized that mere strokes of the pen in fact, even the most unexpected whims in the past of a few individuals determine the history of countless numbers of others; and we readily leave it to the pious to thank their God for these accidents. We may perhaps laugh at this thought when we meet again in Leipzig.
I had already made myself familiar with the thought of being a soldier. I often wished that I might be snatched from my monotonous labours; I yearned for the opposite extreme to my excitement, to the tempestuous stress of my life and to the raptures of my enthusiasm. For, despite all my efforts, it has been brought home to me more clearly every day that it is impossible to shuffle such work out of one's coat sleeve. During the holidays I have learnt, relatively speaking, a good deal, and now they are at an end. My Theognis finds itself at least one term further forward. I have, moreover, made many illuminating discoveries which will considerably enrich my quaestiones Theognideae.Theognis, the aristocratic poet of Megara, awoke Nietzsche's interest even when he was still at Pforta.—Translator.
For recreation I turn to three things, and a wonderful recreation they provide! my Schopenhauer, Schumann's music, and, finally, solitary walks. Yesterday a heavy storm hung in the sky, and I hastened up a neighbouring hill, called Leusch (perhaps you can explain the word to me?). On the summit I found a hut and a man killing two kids, with his son looking on. The storm broke with a mighty crash, discharging thunder and hail, and I felt inexpressibly well and full of zest, and realized with singular clearness that to understand Nature one must go to her as I had just done, as a refuge from all worries and oppressions. What did man with his restless will matter to me then? What did I care for the eternal "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not"? How different are lightning, storm and hail—free powers without ethics! How happy, how strong they are—pure will untrammeled by the muddling influence of the intellect!
For have I not seen examples enough of how muddling a man's intellect frequently is? Not long ago I had occasion to speak to a man who was on the point of going out to India as a missionary. I put a few questions to him and learned that he had not read a single Indian work, knew nothing about the Upanishads—not even their name—and had resolved to have nothing to do with the Brahmans because they had philosophical training. Holy Ganges!
To-day I listened to a profoundly clever sermon of ———s on Christianity—the Faith that has conquered the world. It was intolerably haughty in its attitude towards all nations that were not Christian, and yet it was exceedingly ingenious. For instance, every now and then he would describe as Christian something else, which always gave an appropriate sense even according to our lights. If the sentence, "Christianity has conquered the world," be changed to "the feeling of sin," or briefly "a metaphysical need has conquered the world," we can raise no reasonable objection; but then one ought to be consistent and say, "All true Hindus are Christians," and also "All true Christians are Hindus." As a matter of fact, how ever, the interchange of such words and concepts as these, which have a fixed meaning, is not altogether honest; it lands the poor in spirit in total confusion. If by Christianity is meant "Faith in an historical event, or in an historical personage," I have nothing to do with it. If, however, it is said to signify briefly a craving for salvation or redemption, then I can set a high value upon it, and do not even object to its endeavouring to discipline the philosophers. For how very few these are compared to the vast masses of men who are in need of salvation! How many of them are not actually made of the same stuff as these masses! If only all those who dabble in philosophy were followers of Schopenhauer! But only too often behind the mask of philosopher stands the exalted majesty of the "Will," which is trying to achieve its own self-glorification. If the philosophers ruled ςορμγυ φιThe Masses. would be lost; were the masses to prevail, as they do at present, the philosophers rari in gurgite rastoFew survivors in the unmeasured seas. From the famous verse in Virgil's Aeneid, I. 118.—Translator. would still be able, like Aeschylus, δίχα ᾶλλων φρονέειν."To differ from the opinions of others." See Aeschylus, Agamemnon 757.—Translator.
Apart from this, it is certainly extremely irksome to restrain our Schopenhauerian ideas, still so young, vigorous and half expressed; and to have weighing forever upon our hearts this unfortunate disparity between theory and practice. And for this I can think of no consolation; on the contrary, I am in need of it myself.
And now farewell, old man! Remember me to all your family. Mine wish to be remembered to you; let us leave it at that. When we meet again we shall probably smile, and rightly too!
Yours, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - January, 1867 Leipzig, End of January, 1867. MY DEAR FRIEND: At the beginning of January at Naumburg I too stood at the deathbed of a near relative. Next to my mother and sister, this dear lady had the greatest claim on my love and veneration. She had always displayed the most devoted interest in my career, and with her I seem to have lost a whole piece of my past and especially of my childhood. And yet, when I received your letter, my poor dear afflicted friend, I was overcome by a much deeper grief. The difference between the two deaths seemed so enormous. There, in Naumburg, a life replete with good deeds had at last been consummated, and despite a weakly constitution had at least lasted well into old age. We all had the feeling that the strength both of her mind and her body was exhausted, and that only for our love had death come too soon. But what have we not lost by the death of your brother, before whom I too stood in such constant admiration and respect!
We have lost one of those rare noble Roman natures about whom Rome at her zenith would have boasted and of whom you, as his brother, have an even greater right to be proud. For how seldom does our wretched age produce such heroic figures! But you know what the ancients thought on the subject: "Those whom the gods love die young."
What wonders such a power might have achieved! As a pattern of self-reliant and glorious endeavour, as an example of a decided character true to himself and indifferent to the world and its opinion, what strength and comfort he might have afforded to thousands caught in life's wild vortex! I am well aware that this vir bonus in the best sense meant even more to you; that, as you often used to tell me in the past, he constituted the ideal to which you aspired, your fixed guiding star amid all the tortuous and difficult highways and byways of life. His death has probably been the severest blow that could possibly have overtaken you.
Now, dear old man, you have realized—so I gather from the tone of your letter—through your own bitter experience, why our Schopenhauer extols suffering and affliction as indispensable to a splendid destiny, as the δεύτερος πλούς;The next best way.—Translator.to the denial of the Will. You have also felt and experienced the chastening, inwardly becalming, and bracing power of pain. This has been a time during which you have yourself tested the truth of Schopenhauer's doctrine. If the fourth book of his principal work now makes a disagreeable, gloomy, and tedious impression upon you; if it has not the power to bear you triumphantly beyond all the terrible outward pain into that sweetly melancholy but happy mood which possesses us at the sound of lofty music, into that mood in which one sees one's earthly shell fall from one, then it is possible that even I, too, may have nothing more to do with his philosophy. Only he who is brimful of anguish can pronounce the decisive judgment on such matters. We others, standing in the middle of the stream of life and things, and longing for the Denial of the Will merely as for the island of the blest, cannot judge whether the consolations of such a philosophy are adequate for times of deep sorrow.
I conclude with a hearty farewell and a quotation from Aristotle: τί γὰρ ἐστιν ᾶνυρωπος; ἀσνενείας ύπόδειγμα χαιρού λάφυνον, τύχης παίγνιον, μεταππώσεως είχών, φυόνου χαί συμφορᾶς πλάστιγε"For what is man? A token of weakness, the spoil of time, the sport of fortune, the image of change, the plaything of envy and chance." (The translator has been unable to trace this passage in Aristotle.)
Your devoted and likewise stricken friend, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - February, 1867 Leipzig, February, 1867. DEAR FRIEND: If you are not in a mood to listen to a host of weird things, just put this letter aside and reserve it for another occasion.
Pious people believe that all the suffering and mishaps that come their way have been sent to them with the most careful premeditation, in order that this or that thought, such and such a resolution or understanding might be kindled in them. We lack the very first principles on which such a faith is based. It does lie in our power, however, to suck every event, every trivial or serious mishap, dry and to turn it to account for our improvement and discipline. The predestined character of every individual's fate is no myth if we understand it in this sense. What we have to do is intentionally to turn our fate to account, for events are, in themselves, but insignificant accessories to this end. It all turns upon our personal attitude. An event has no more value than we choose to invest it with. Thoughtless and unmoral people know nothing of this purposefulness of fate. Events make no lasting impression upon them. We, however, wish to learn something from them, and the more our knowledge of moral affairs increases and the more complete it becomes, the more surely will the events of our life link themselves up into a fast-bound ring, or will at least seem to do so. You know, old man, what I mean by these remarks.
And now, with the expression of my mother's, my cousin's and my own sincere sympathy, I will take my leave of you for today.
Yours affectionately, F. N.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - April, 1867 Naumburg, April 6, 1867. MY DEAR FRIEND: Heaven alone knows the cause of my long silence, for I am never more thankful or more happy than when your letters arrive to give me news of your doings and your spirits.
During the holidays I intend to make a written record of my work on the sources of Diogenes Laertius, though I am anything but far advanced. For your amusement let me confess what it is that gives me the most pain and trouble my German style (not to mention my Latin). But I have come to an understanding with my mother tongue, so foreign languages cannot fail to follow suit. The scales have fallen from my eyes; too long had I lived in stylistic innocence. The categorical imperative, "Thou shalt and must write," has called me to my senses. Truth to tell, I made an attempt I had never made since my Gymnasium days namely, to write well and suddenly my pen seemed to become paralyzed in my hand. I could do nothing and felt very angry. Meanwhile my ears rang with Lessing's, Lichtenberg's, and Schopenhauer's precepts on style. It was a constant comfort to me to know that these authorities were unanimous in declaring that to write well was a difficult matter, that no man was born with a good style, and that in order to acquire the capacity one had to work hard and keep one's nose to the grindstone. God forbid that I should write again in such a wooden, dry style and with so much logical tightlacing as I did in my Theognis essay, for instance, on the cradle of which none of the Graces ever lighted (on the contrary, it was more like the distant booming of the cannon at Koniggratz).A reference to the great battle fought between the Austrians and the Prussians at this place about nine months before this letter was written.—Translator. It would be hard indeed not to be able to write better than this when one longs so ardently to do so. The first thing to do is to let a number of bright and lively spirits loose upon one's style; I must play upon it as if it were a keyboard. But I must not play the things I have learnt, but improvise freely, as freely as possible, and yet with logic and beauty.
Secondly, I am disturbed by another wish. One of my oldest Naumburg friends, Wilhelm Finder, is just going in for his first Law examination you and I know the qualms inseparable from such a time. But what attracts me and even tempts me to follow suit is not the examination itself, but the preparation for it. How valuable and uplifting it must be to let all the disciplined elements of one's science march past one in the space of about six months, and thus obtain for once a general view of the whole! Is it not exactly as if an officer, accustomed always to the mere drilling of his company, were suddenly to behold in battle the magnificent fruit his small efforts could bear? For it cannot be denied that the uplifting general view of antiquity is altogether lacking in most philosophers because they stand too close to the picture and examine a spot of oil instead of admiring and, what is more, enjoying the broad and bold outlines of the composition as a whole. When, I ask you, shall we at last realize that pure enjoyment in our studies of antiquity about which, alas! we have so often talked?
Thirdly, the whole of our method of working is horrible. The hundred and one books lying on the table before me are only so many pincers consuming all the vitality out of the nerve of independent thought. I verily believe, old man, that with a bold hand you have selected the best possible lot—that is to say, an active contrast, a reversed standpoint, an absolutely different attitude towards life, mankind, work, and duty. By this I do not mean to praise your present calling, as such, but only in so far as it constitutes the negation of your former life, together with its object and its point of view. Amid such contrasts body and soul keep healthy, and none of those inevitable morbid symptoms appear which in the scholar are caused by a preponderance of intellectual, and, in the clodhopper, by a preponderance of bodily exercise. Of course, the morbidity manifests itself differently in each. The Greeks were no scholars, but neither were they brainless athletes. Are we, therefore, necessarily bound to exercise a choice between the one or the other way of living? Is it not possible that with Christianity a division was made in this realm of man's nature also, which the nation of harmony knew nothing about? Ought not every scholar to blush at the thought of Sophocles, who, distinguished as he was in the domain of the spirit, was yet able to dance with grace and understood the art of playing at ball? But we stand towards these things