music and philosophy together. He also entrusted me with the task of making his music known to his sister and his relations, a duty which I undertook very solemnly to fulfil. You will hear more about it when I have succeeded in looking at this evening more objectively and from a greater distance. For the time being a hearty farewell and best wishes for your health from yours, F. N.
To Rohde - November, 1868 Leipzig on the Day of Penance, November 20, 1868. MY DEAR FRIEND: Now that I can once more contemplate the teeming brood of philologists of our day at close quarters; now that I am obliged daily to observe the whole of their mole-hill activity, their swollen cheek pouches, their blind eyes, their rejoicing over the captured worm and their indifference towards the true—nay, the obvious—problems of life, and remember that I notice these characteristics not only in the young brood, but also in their venerable elders, I grow ever more clearly convinced that we two, if we wish to remain true to our genius, will not be able to pursue our life task without causing much offence, and being constantly thwarted and crossed in our purpose. When the philologist and the man are not of one piece, the whole tribe above mentioned gapes in astonishment at the miracle; it grows angry and finally scratches, growls, and bites. You have just experienced an example of this. For of this I am quite certain, that the trick you have been played was not directed at your work in particular, but at your individuality. And I, too, live in hope of having very soon a foretaste of what awaits me in this infernal atmosphere. But, my good man, what have the judgments of other people concerning our personalities to do with our achievements? Let us remember Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner, and the inexhaustible energy with which they maintained their belief in themselves in the face of protests from the whole of the "cultured" world, and even if we are not allowed to refer them to deos maximos"The biggest of Gods."—Translator. we still have the consolation of knowing that however odd one is one cannot be denied the right to existence, and that two such odd creatures as ourselves who understand each other so well and are so deeply united must be a delightful spectacle for the gods.
Finally, nothing could be more regrettable than the fact that precisely at this moment, when we have just begun to put our views of life to a practical test, and explore all things and all circumstances in turn—men, states, studies, world histories, churches, schools, etc.—with our antennae, we should be separated by miles of territory, and each should be left alone with the semi-enjoyable and semi-painful feeling of having to digest his outlook on the world in solitude. As a matter of fact nothing would have been more exhilarating than to sit down together now, as we used to do, to digest our bodily meals together at Kintschy's, and symbolically drink our afternoon coffee in company, and, from this midday of our lives, glance backwards into the past and forwards into the future.
However, it will not be too late to do this even in Paris, where the great άναγνώφισιςUnravelment. of our comedy takes place, and upon the most beautiful scene in the world, too, between the most brilliant wings and in numerable glittering supers.
Oh, how lovely this image is!
Therefore avaunt unadorned reality, shamefully vulgar empiricism, credit and debit, and "Grenzboten" sobriety!—no, let the whole of this letter be presented to my friend, with all my soul, as a solemn and lofty greeting!
(He drinks the contents of the ink bottle.) Chorus of the Ascetics: Selig der Liebende, Der die betrübende, Heilsam' ünd ubende Prüfung bestanden.Blessed be the loving friend who has passed the trying but wholesome and toilsome exam. Goethe's Faust, I, Act 5.—Translator.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - April, 1869 Naumburg, April 13, 1869. MY DEAR FRIEND: My hour has come and this is the last evening I shall spend at home for some time. Early tomorrow morning I go out into the wide, wide world, to enter a new and untried profession, in an atmosphere heavy and oppressive with duty and work. Once more I must take leave of everything, the golden time of free and unconstrained activity, in which every instant is sovereign, in which the joys of art and the world are spread out before us as a mere spectacle in which we scarcely participate. This time is now for ever in the past for me. Now the inexorable goddess "Daily Duty" rules supreme. "Bemooster Bursche zieh? ich aus!" A song sung by German students on leaving the University.—Translator. [As a moss-grown student I go out into the world.] But you know that touching student song of course! "Muss selber nun Philister sein!" Another line of the same song.—Translator. [I too must be a Philistine now.] In one way or another this line always comes true. One cannot take up posts and honours with impunity the only question is, are the fetters of iron or of thread? For I have the pluck which will one day perhaps enable me to burst my bonds and venture into this precarious life from a different direction and in a different way. As yet I see no sign of the inevitable humpback of the professor. May Zeus and all the Muses preserve me from ever becoming a Philistine, an ᾶνδφωποςA man who takes no interest in the Muses or Arts.—Translator., a man of the herd. But I do not know how I could become one, seeing that I am not one. It is true I stand a little nearer to another kind of Philistine—the Philistine of the "specialist" species; for it is only natural that the daily task, and the unremitting concentration of the mind upon certain specified subjects and problems, should tend to abate the free receptivity of the mind and undermine the philosophic sense. But I flatter myself that I shall be able to meet this danger with more calm and assurance than the majority of philologists. Philosophical seriousness is already too deeply rooted in me; the true and essential problems of life and thought have been too clearly revealed to me by that great mystagogue, Schopenhauer, to allow of my ever being obliged to dread such a disgraceful defection from the "Idea". To infuse this new blood into my science, to communicate to my pupils that Schopenhauerian earnestness which is stamped on the brow of the sublime man—such is my desire, such is my undaunted hope. I should like to be something more than a mere trainer of efficient philologists. The present generation of teachers, the care of the coming generation—all this is in my mind.
If we must live our lives out to the bitter end let us at least do so in such wise that others may bless our life as a priceless treasure, once we have been happily released from its tolls.
As for you, old man, with whom I agree on such a number of vital and fundamental questions, I wish you the luck you deserve and myself your old and tried friendship. Fare thee well! FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, DR.
To Rohde - August, 1869 Badenweiler, August 17, 1869. MY DEAR FRIEND: This is the last day of the holidays. Feelings long since dead and buried seem to wake again. I feel just like a fourth-form boy who waxes sentimental and writes poems about the ephemeral character of earthly happiness when he hears the clock strike on the last day of the holidays. Oh, dear friend, what a small amount of joy is mine and what a lot of my own smoke I have to consume! Aye, I wouldn't fear even an attack of that dreadful dysentery if by means of it I could purchase a talk with you every evening. How unsatisfactory letters are! Incidentally I discovered the following beautiful passage in old Goethe yesterday: "How precious is the dear and certain speech Of the present friend! The Solitary, Robbed of its power benign, sinks into gloom; Too slowly ripens, then locked in his breast, Thought and each firm resolve; but in the presence Of the beloved friend they leap to life!"Goethe: Iphigenia, Act. IV. Translated by Hermann Scheffauer. You see, that's the whole thing: we are in eternal need of midwives, and with the view of being confined most men go into the public house or to a "colleague," and then the little thoughts and little plans romp out like kittens. When, however, we are pregnant and there is no one at hand to assist us in our difficult delivery, then darkly and gloomily we lay our rude, unformed, newborn thought in the murky recess of some cave; the sunny rays of friendship are denied it.
But with my incessant talk about solitude, I shall soon develop into a regular Joseph, the carpenter, and then no kind Mary will wish to join her lot with mine. "The calf and the baby ass, men say, do praise the Lord most perfectly." There s the whole thing! A little cattle makes the whole world kin, the edifice is crowned. Remember it was the shepherds and the sheep who saw the stars; to people like us everything is dark...
Now let me tell you something about my Jupiter, Richard Wagner, to whom I go from time to time for a breath of air, and receive more refreshment by so doing than any of my colleagues could possibly imagine. The fellow has not received a single honour yet, and has only just had the distinction of being elected honorary member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. A fruitful, rich and convulsive life, distinctly unheard of and deviating from the average standard of morals. But that is precisely why he stands there, firmly rooted in his own power, with his eyes always scanning a distance beyond everything ephemeral, and beyond his age in the finest sense. Not long ago he handed me the MS. of "State and Religion," intended as a mémoire for the young King of Bavaria. It is conceived on such a high plane, is so independent of time, and so full of nobility and Schopenhauerian earnestness that it made me feel I should like to be a king in order to receive such exhortations. By-the-bye, a little while ago I sent him one or two passages out of your letters for Frau von Bülow, who had often asked me for them. On my last visit but one a baby boy was born during the night and was called "Siegfried." The last time I was there Wagner had just completed the composition of his Siegfried, and was full of the exuberance of his power. Aren't you going to write to him? Perhaps you think he has more than enough lay admirers. But do not write as a musician; write as a man who is in sympathy with his thoughts and is as earnest as he is. He very rarely gets a sign of this sort, and every time he does happen to he is as delighted as if he had had a windfall...
Farewell, my dear, true friend. FRIED. NIETZSCHE.
Nietzsche To His Mother - August, 1869 Bâle, Monday Evening, August 30, 1869. DEAR MOTHER: I have just returned from an exceedingly enjoyable and harmonically happy visit of two days to my friend Wagner and am reminded that I owe you an answer as well as thanks for two letters. Above all I am delighted to hear that you are sure to come in the autumn, but you have formed an exaggerated opinion of the all too modest space at my disposal in my new quarters if you think I shall be able to put you both up. I shall however do my best to make arrangements for you to live quite close to me, perhaps even in the same house. This would be quite possible if my colleague Schönberg moves, as he intends to do, at the right time. Then his rooms would be free. We are now very busy again and regularly so. As soon as the term is over and I am quite free, I think we shall make our way together to the charming Lake of Geneva and eat as many grapes as we like, but not medicinally like the Grand-duchess.The Grand-duchess Constantine had been a pupil of our father's.—E.F.N.
As you seem to be interested in her meeting with me, I must add that it made quite a favourable impression upon me. She seems to have received a sound and liberal education; she shows marked signs of having a good intellect and an earnest grasp of life, which is certainly not rare in royal personages and is quite comprehensible in view of the burdens of their position. She has moreover a friendly, accessible and engaging manner, and does not suffer from a desire to be constantly standing on ceremony. I received her as you suggested. I met her at the railway station with a bouquet, escorted her on foot across the Rhine bridge and then as far as her hotel in a carriage. I then had dinner with her and her suite—she has engaged 21 rooms. So I was in her company in all about two or three hours and for a good part of that time alone with her. During that time she told me a good deal about old days and recent ones as well; for instance, a lot about you, how Lizzie had grown so thin at Leipzig, and whether she drank cow's milk now, etc., etc. The ladies in waiting were also quite attentive to me and proved kind and cheerful creatures. One is at a great advantage when one's attitude towards royal personages is quite independent and one has no requests or appeals to lay before them. Why did Lizzie tremble so on the occasion of her first visit and behave in such a nervous way? I would not say that I had been embarrassed by the whole affair, but I regretted the time lost.
The Grand-duchess revealed a strong taste for music and thought over the proximity of Tribschen and Richard Wagner a good deal. She asked me to convey to him her deep regard for his work.
Never have I been happier than during the last few days. The warm, hearty and increasing intimacy with Wagner and Fran von Billow, the complete agreement between us on all the questions that chiefly interest us, Wagner absolutely in the prime of his genius and marvellous creations only just come into being, glorious Tribschen arranged on such a regal and ingenious scale—many things conspire to exhilarate me and strengthen me in my calling.
Good-bye! F. N.
To Rohde - February, 1870 Bâle, End of January to February 15, 1870. MY DEAR FRIEND: I suddenly began to feel anxious the other day. I am wondering how you are getting on in Rome, and thinking how remote from the world and isolated your life there must be. You may even be ill and are receiving no proper care and no friendly support. Set my fears at rest and dispel my pessimistic fancies. I always imagine Rome of the Christian Councils as a terribly poisonous place—no, I shall not write any more; for I have a feeling that the secrecy of a letter is not sufficiently secure for the discussion of ecclesiastical and Jesuitical matters. They might scent what the contents of the letter were, and pay you out for it. You are studying antiquity and leading the life of the Middle Ages.
Now let me impress this upon you most emphatically—don't forget on your return journey to come and spend some time with me. Perhaps, you know, it might be the last time for many years. I miss you terribly, so give me the comfort of your presence and try to make your stay not too short a one. For it is indeed a new experience for me to have no one on the spot to whom I can tell all the best and the worst that life brings me—not even a really sympathetic colleague. In such anchoritic conditions and with such difficult years in a young life, my friendship is actually becoming something pathological. I beg you, as an invalid begs: "Come to Bâle!"
My real refuge, which cannot be valued too highly, is still Triebschen, near Lucerne. The only thing is I can but seldom have recourse to it. I spent my Christmas holidays there, most beautiful and uplifting memory! It is absolutely necessary that you too should be initiated into this magic. When once you are my guest we shall go and visit our friend Wagner together. Can't you tell me anything about Franz Liszt? If you could possibly manage to come home via Lake Como you would have a fine opportunity of giving us all great pleasure. We, i.e., we Triebschen folk, have our eye on a villa on the lake near Fiume Latte. It is called "Valla Capuana," and consists of two houses. Could you manage to inspect this villa and give us the benefit of your opinion?...
I have delivered a lecture on "The Ancient Musical Drama" before a mixed audience, and on Feb. 1st. I shall deliver a second on "Socrates and Tragedy." Every day I get to like the Hellenic world more and more. There is no better way of approaching close to it than that of indefatigably cultivating one's own little self. The degree of culture I have attained consists in a most mortifying admission of my own ignorance. The life of a philologist striving in every direction of criticism and yet a thousand miles away from Greek antiquity becomes every day more impossible to me. I even doubt whether I shall ever succeed in becoming a proper philologist. If I cannot succeed incidentally, as it were, I shall never succeed. The trouble of it is that I have no example and am in the dangerous position of the fool who acts on his own responsibility. My plan for the immediate future is four years of work in cultivating myself and then a year of travel, in your company perhaps. Our life is really a very difficult one. Sweet ignorance led by teachers and traditions was so blissfully secure.
Moreover you will be well-advised not to choose a small University in which to settle down. One is isolated even in one's science. What would I not give for you and me to be able to live together! I am almost forgetting how to speak. But the most irksome feature of my life is that I must always be impersonating or representing somebody, either the teacher, the philologist, or the man, and that I have always to begin by proving my mettle to all whom I frequent. I am, however, a very bad hand at this, and get steadily worse as time goes on. I either remain dumb or intentionally only say as much as a polite man of the world is expected to say. In short, I am more dissatisfied with myself than with the world, and feel therefore all the more attached to the dearest of friends.
Farewell! Farewell!
Nietzsche To His Mother - August, 1870 Sulz, near Weissenburg, in the Neighbourhood of Worth, August 28, 1870. TO BEGIN WITH, HEARTY GREETINGS: We have already been two days on the journey from Erlangen: it takes longer than one thinks, although we lay claim to every means of conveyance to hand, and entered France, for instance, sitting on the breaks of an enormous supply train. Yesterday, on a march lasting eleven hours, we performed our errands at Gorsdorf and Langensulzbach, and on the battlefield of Worth. Under separate cover I am sending you a souvenir of the terribly devastated battlefield, strewn with countless sad remains and smelling strongly of corpses. Today we want to go to Hagenau, tomorrow to Nancy, and so on, in the direction of the Southern Army. Mosengel and I are travelling alone and shall only rejoin Ziemssen, our Erlangen colleague, at Pont-à-Mousson.
No letters from you can possibly reach me for the next few weeks, as we are constantly changing our position, and the letter post is exceedingly slow. Nothing can be gleaned here of the progress of our army, all papers having completely ceased. The enemy population here seems to be growing used to the new state of affairs. But of course it should be remembered that they are threatened with death for the smallest offence.
In all the villages through which we have passed one sees hospital after hospital.
I shall soon send you further news. Don't be in the least anxious on my account. YOUR FRITZ.
Nietzsche To His Mother Erlangen, September 11, 1870. Hotel Walfisch. DEAREST MOTHER: Just think—until now I have had no news of you, but my campaign has already come to an end without mishap. Not quite without mishap, perhaps, for I am lying here suffering from severe dysentery: but the worst symptoms are overHe was so ill that the parson had come to prepare him for the end; he did not wish to tell us this, however. He always maintained that he had had cholera.—E.F.N. and on Tuesday or Wednesday I shall be able to travel to Naumburg to be nursed back to health again. And now as regards this, I should like you and Lizzie, if you possibly can, to return to Naumburg. What with my longing for peace and quiet and the exhausted state I am in, there is no other place to which I should like to go. I went as far as the outskirts of Metz and conducted a transport of wounded from there to Carlsruhe. And as the result of this, the terrible state of all the wounded in my hands, the constant bandaging of their septic wounds, and sleeping in a cattle truck in which six severely wounded men lay on straw, I contracted the germ of dysentery. The doctor discovered that I was suffering from diphtheria as well, which is also the outcome of this journey. This is another of the evils we are combating with the utmost vigour.
In spite of it all I am glad at least to have been able to help a little in the midst of all the incredible misery. And I should have returned to my duties immediately if illness had not made this impossible.
With heartiest greetings and wishes, YOUR SON. F. N.
To Ritschl - September, 1870 Naumburg, September 21, 1870. DEAR SIR: Who can tell whether you have received my last letters! This is the secret qualm which at such times as these seizes every letter writer. That is why I will tell you once again that in the service of the voluntary ambulance corps I went from Erlangen to the seat of war as far as Ars-sur-Moselle (quite close to Metz), and that I brought a transport of wounded from there to Carlsruhe. The strain of the whole undertaking was considerable and I am still struggling against the recollection of all I saw during those weeks, as well as against an incessant wail of which I cannot rid my mind's ear. On my return I was laid up with two dangerous diseases caught from the seriously wounded men I had nursed unremittingly for all those days and nights diphtheria and dysentery alas! nobile par fratrum!"What a noble pair of brothers."—Translator.
However, I have got over the worst of both these maladies. A few days ago I arrived here in Naumburg with the view of recuperating thoroughly and of recovering by means of peaceful work from the stress and fatigue I had undergone. It is a funny thing that in spite of one's best intentions for the general weal one's own paltry personality with all its wretchedness and weakness comes and trips one up. Once more, alas!
I hope shortly to be able to give you an account of my experiences in person, and I am also bringing you one or two chassepot bullets picked up on the battlefields. All my martial passions have been kindled once more and I have been unable to gratify them. Had I joined my battery I might have been an active or passive witness of the events at Rezonville, Sedan and Laon. But the neutrality of Switzerland tied my hands...But when have we been able to walk more proudly than at present? Surely when German meets German now they can laugh as well as cry together like two augurs!
And this we shall do together next week. Au revoir! Your devoted, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - October, 1870 Naumburg, October 20, 1870. MY DEAR FRIEND: This morning I had a most pleasant surprise and release from much anxiety and uneasiness—your letter. Only the day before yesterday I received the most terrible shock on hearing your name pronounced in faltering accents at Pforta. You know what these faltering accents mean just now. I immediately begged the Rector to give me the list of old Pforta boys who had fallen in the war, and this document reached me yesterday evening. In one important respect it reassured me. Otherwise it was a sad record. In addition to the names you have already mentioned, I find at the head of the list Stockert, then Von Oertzen (though his name has a question mark against it), then Von Riedesel, etc., sixteen in all. I was deeply moved by all you told me, above all by the sincerity and gravity with which you speak of the trial by fire to which the philosophy we hold in common has been subjected. I, too, have had a similar experience, and in my case, as well, these months have been a period during which I have been able to prove how deep and firm are the roots our fundamental doctrine has struck in me. One can die with it—this is much more than saying that one can live with it. For I have not been so securely removed from the dangers of the war as you might imagine. As soon as it was declared I applied to my Governing Board for leave to discharge my duty as a German soldier. They granted me leave but stipulated that in view of Switzerland's neutrality I was on no account to bear arms. (Since 1869 I have ceased to be a Prussian citizen.) With out delay, therefore, I set out with an excellent friend with the object of offering myself as a volunteer ambulance attendant. This friend, who shared all my experiences for seven weeks, is the painter Mosengel of Hamburg, a man whom I must introduce to you as soon as peace is restored. Without his hearty assistance I should probably not have survived the events of this period. At Erlangen I attended the University lectures in order to be trained in medicine and surgery; we had 200 wounded there. In a very few days I was given charge of two Prussians and two Turcos. Two of these very soon contracted hospital gangrene, and I had to do a lot of painting. At the end of a fortnight Mosengel and I were sent out by a Red Cross Society there. We were intrusted with a host of personal messages and also with large sums of money to be handed to about eighty field chaplains already dispatched to the seat of war. Our plan was to join my colleague Ziemssen at Pont-à-Mousson, and to throw in our lot with his band of fifteen young men. As a matter of fact, however, this plan was not realized. We met with great difficulties in discharging our various commissions, for, as we had no addresses, we were obliged, at considerable pains and with only the most inadequate directions to guide us, to go from battlefield to battlefield and scour the hospitals of Weissenburg and the field hospitals of Worth, Hagenau, Luneville, and Nancy, all the way to Metz. At Ars-sur-Moselle a number of wounded soldiers were placed in our care, and as they had to be conveyed to Carlsruhe, we returned with them. I had charge of six very seriously wounded men singlehanded for three days and three nights; Mosengel had five. The weather was atrocious and the goods trucks we were in had to be almost closed up to prevent the poor invalids from getting soaked through. The air in these trucks was simply unspeakable and to make matters worse two of my patients had dysentery and two others diphtheria. In short I had an incredible amount to do and spent three hours in the morning and three at night dressing wounds alone. In addition to that, I could get no rest at night owing to my patients continual need of me. After I had delivered up my charges to a stationary hospital I fell very ill myself and quickly developed a severe attack of dysentery and diphtheria. I reached Erlangen with great difficulty and there I laid up. Mosengel was self-sacrificing enough to nurse me there—a no small under taking considering the nature of my malady. After I had been dosed with opium and injections of tannin and silver nitrate for several days, the worst danger was over. In a week I was able to travel to Naumburg, but I am not right yet. Besides, the atmosphere of my experiences had spread like a gloomy mist all about me, and for some time I never ceased to hear the plaintive cries of the wounded. It was therefore quite impossible to pursue my plan of returning to the seat of war, and now I must be content with watching and pitying from a distance.
Oh, my dear friend, what good wishes can I send you! We both know what we have to expect from life. But we must not live for ourselves alone. So live on! live on! dearest friend, and fare you well! I know your heroic nature. Oh, if only you could be spared to me!
Your devoted friend, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (now in Bâle for good).
To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff - November, 1870 Bâle, November 7, 1870. MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I had a treat which I should have liked you of all people to share. Jacob BurckhardtThe famous Bâle Professor, author of The Renaissance in Italy, etc. gave a free lecture on "Historical Greatness," which was quite in keeping with our thought and feeling. This exceedingly original old man, although not given to distortion, is yet inclined to hush up the truth. But on our confidential walks he calls Schopenhauer "our philosopher." Every week I attend one of his lectures on the Study of History, and I believe I am the only one of his sixty listeners who grasps the profundity of his line of thought with its curious breaks and twists at any point where the subject threatens to be come dangerous. For the first time in my life I have enjoyed a lecture, but then it was the sort of one I myself might give when I am older.