Sunday week I shall go to Italy for a long stay. You will hear from me when I get there. In any case a letter sent to my address in Bâle (45 Schützengraben) will reach me. In brotherly affection, Yours DR. FRIEDR. NIETZSCHE.
To Rohde - August, 1877 Rosenlauibad, August 28, 1877. DEAR OLD FRIEND: How can I express it? But every time I think of you I am overcome by a sort of deep emotion; and when, a day or two ago, someone wrote to me "Rohde's young wife is an exceedingly sweet woman whose every feature is illumined by her noble soul," I actually wept. And I can give you absolutely no plausible reason for having done so. We might ask the psychologists for an explanation. Ultimately they would declare it was envy and that I grudged you your happiness, or that it was my vexation at someone having run away with my friend and having concealed him Heaven alone knows where, on the Rhine or in Paris, and refused to give him up again. When I was humming my "Hymn to Solitude" to myself a few days ago, I suddenly had the feeling that you could not abide my music at all and that you would much have preferred a song on Dual Bliss. The same evening I played a song of this sort, as well as I was able, and it was so successful that all the angels might have listened to it with joy, particularly the human ones. But it was in a dark room and no one heard it. Thus I am forced to consume my own happiness, tears, and everything in private.
Shall I tell you all about myself—how every day I set out two hours before the sun rises on the hills and after that take my walks only among the lengthening shadows of the afternoon and evening? How many things I have thought out, and how rich I feel now that this year I have at last been allowed to strip off the old moss growth of the daily routine of teaching and thinking! As to my life here, I can only say that it is tolerable, in spite of all my ailments which have certainly followed me even up to the heights—but I have so many intervals of happy exultation both of thought and feeling.
A little while ago I had a genuinely sacred day, thanks to "Prometheus Unbound." If the poetSiegfried Lipiner, one of Nietzsche's admirers, had sent Nietzsche his own poem.—Translator. be not a true genius then I do not know what genius means. The whole thing is wonderful, and I felt as if I had met my own transfigured and exalted self in the work. I bow low before a man who is capable of having and expressing such thoughts.
In three days I shall return to Bâle. My sister is already there and busy preparing the place for my arrival.
The faithful musician P. Gast is going to join our household, and is going to undertake the duties of a friendly amanuensis.
I am rather dreading the coming winter. Things must change. The man who only has a few moments a day for what he regards as most important, and who has to spend the rest of his time and energy performing duties which others could carry out equally well—such a man is not a harmonious whole; he must be in conflict with himself and must ultimately fall ill. If I exercise any influence over youth at all, I owe it to my writings, and for these I have to thank my leisure moments—yes, the intervals I have won for myself, in the midst of professional duties by means of illness. Well, things must change: si male nunc non olim sic erit."If things are bad today, at some future time they will be better."—Translator Meanwhile may the happiness of my friends increase and flourish. It is always a great solace to me to think of you, my dear friend (just now I have a vision of you on the bank of a lake surrounded by roses and with a beautiful white swan swimming towards you).
With brotherly affection, Yours F.
To Madame Louise O. - August, 1877 Rosenlauibad, August 29, 1877. DEAR FRIEND: I shall not forsake my mountain loneliness without once more writing to tell you how fond I am of you. How superfluous it is to say this, or to write it, isn't it? But my affection for anyone sticks to them like a thorn, and at times is as troublesome as a thorn; it is not so easy to get rid of it. So be good enough to receive this small, superfluous, and troublesome letter.
I have been told that—well, that you are expecting, hoping, wishing. I deeply sympathized with you when I heard the news, and, believe me, your wishes are mine. A fresh, good, and beautiful human being on earth!—that is something, it is a great deal! As you absolutely refuse to immortalize yourself in novels, you do so in this way. And we must all feel most grateful to you (more particularly as I hear it is a much more trying affair even than the writing of novels).
A day or two ago, quite suddenly, I saw your eyes in the dark. Why does no one ever look at me with such eyes? I exclaimed irritably. Oh, it is ghastly!
Do you know that no woman's voice has ever made a deep impression on me, although I have met all kinds of famous women? But I firmly believe there is a voice for me somewhere on earth, and I am seeking it. Where on earth is it?
Fare you well. May all the good fairies be constantly about you. Your devoted friend, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
To Seydlitz - January, 1878 Bâle, January 4, 1878. MY DEAR FRIEND:...Yesterday Wagner sent me his Parsifal. My impression after the first perusal was that it is more Liszt than Wagner; it is in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation. To me, accustomed as I am to the Greek and generally human concept of things, it is all too Christian, too limited in its duration. It is one mass of fantastic psychology, has no flesh and too much blood (especially at the Last Supper, which was far too full-blooded for my taste.) And then I cannot abide hysterical females. Much that can be tolerated by the inner eye will scarcely be endured when it is produced on the stage. Imagine our actors praying and quivering with distorted necks! Even the inside of the Gralsberg cannot be effective on the stage, and the same applies to the wounded swan. All these beautiful devices belong to the epic and are, as I have said, for the inner eye of the imagination. The German sounds as if it were a translation from a foreign tongue. But as for the situations and their succession are they not in the highest sense poetical? Do they not constitute a last challenge to music?
Please be content with this for today, and with kindest regards to your dear wife and yourself, I am, yours affectionately, NIETZSCHE.
Nietzsche To Malvida Von Meysenbug - June, 1878 Bâle, June 11, 1878. Who was it who thought of me on May 30?Note by Frau F. Nietzsche: "Strange to say, a bust of Voltaire reached my brother on May 30, accompanied by this anonymous note: L'ame de Voltaire fait ses compliments a Frederic Nietzsche. At that time the identity of the sender was an insoluble mystery; but in later years it struck me that it might have been that excellent young man Gersdorff." I received two very fine letters (from Gast and Rée)—and then something still finer: I was quite moved—the fate of the man about whom for the last hundred years there have existed only party prejudices loomed as a terrible symbol before my eyes. Towards the emancipators of the spirit mankind is most irreconcilable in its hate, and most unjust in its love. Albeit I shall go on my way in peace, and renounce everything that might stand in my way. This is the decisive element in life: were I not conscious of the superlative fruitfulness of my new philosophy, I should certainly feel frightfully isolated and alone. But I am at one with myself. Your heartily devoted friend, F. N.
Nietzsche To Peter Gast - March, 1879 Bâle, March 1, 1879. DEAR, KIND, HELPFUL FRIEND: There is now only one thing left to be done, and that is to try to get well in VeniceThis is a reference to Peter Gast's constant assurance that Venice would prove beneficial to Nietzsche's health.—Translator. My condition has again been simply appalling, next door to intolerable. "Am I fit to travel?" The question I kept asking myself was whether I should be alive by then.
Provisional programme: On Tuesday evening, March 25, at about 7.45 I shall reach Venice, and there you will take me on board. Is that right? You will hire a private apartment for me (a room with a nice warm bed) which must be peaceful. If possible secure a terrace or flat roof, either at your lodgings or mine, where you and I will be able to sit out together, etc.
I do not wish to see any sights, except by accident. All I want to do is to sit on the Piazza San Marco in the sunshine and listen to the military band. I always attend Mass at San Marco on fête days. I shall silently roam about the public gardens.
I want to eat good figs and oysters, too, and follow the example of the man of experience—yourself. I shall take no meals at the hotel.
I require the utmost calm. I shall bring a few books with me. Warm baths are to be had at Barbese (I have the address).
You will receive the first complete copy of the book. Read it right through again so that in it you may recognize yourself as retoucheur (as well as myself; for, after all, I too, went to some pains in producing it).
Good Heavens!—it is perhaps my last production. To my mind it is full of intrepid repose.
If you only knew how well and with what gratitude I always speak of you! And what hopes I cherish about you!
Now, for a while, be my good shepherd and medical adviser in Venice. But it pains me to think that I am once more going to give you a lot of trouble. I promise you, though, that I shall take up as little of your time as possible.
With hearty thanks, I am your friend, NIETZSCHE.
Nietzsche To His Mother And Sister - April, 1879 Bâle, April 25, 1879. Since my last card things have gone from bad to worse, in Geneva as in Bâle, whither I returned last Monday. I had attack after attack both there and here. Until now I have been quite unable to give lectures. Yesterday Schiess informed me that my eyesight had deteriorated considerably since he last examined it.
Your letters, full of news and encouragement, reached me while I was still in Geneva. My heartiest thanks! F.Note by Frau F.N.: "In the early part of May I received a letter from Overbeck begging me on my brother's behalf to go to him immediately, as he wished to leave Bâle for good. I found that he had changed extraordinarily since his stay with us the previous autumn, the chief cause of this being the very poor food he ate as a cure. We went together to Schloss Bremgarten near Berne."
Nietzsche To The President Of The Educational Council - May, 1879 Bâle, May 2, 1879. DEAR SIR: The state of my health, which has forced me to address so many appeals to you in the past, now urges me to take this last step and beg you to be so good as to allow me to resign the post of Professor at the University which I have held hitherto. All this time my headaches have increased so much that they are now scarcely endurable; there is also the increasing loss of time occasioned by my attacks of illness which last from two to six days, while I have once more been told by Herr Schiess that my eyesight has again deteriorated so much so that at present I am scarcely able to read or write for twenty minutes at a time without pain. All these considerations force me to recognize that I am no longer fit for my academic duties—nay, that I am no longer equal to them and this after having been obliged during the last few years to allow myself, always much to my regret, many an irregularity in the discharge of these duties. It would redound to the disadvantage of our University, and to the philological studies pursued therein, were I any longer to fill a post for which I have ceased to be suited. Nor can I say that I can any longer entertain any hope of improvement in the state of my head, which seems to have become chronically bad; as for years I have made attempt after attempt to get rid of the trouble, and have led the most severely ordered life, undergoing privations of all kinds—all in vain! This I am bound to admit today, at a time when I have ceased to believe that I shall be able to resist my suffering much longer. I have no other alternative therefore than, in accordance with paragraph 20 of the University Statutes, with deep regret to express the desire to be released from my duties, and also tender my thanks to the University authorities for the many signs of kind indulgence they have shown me from the first hour of my appointment to the present day.
Begging you, Sir, kindly to convey my desire to the Board, I am and remain, Your obedient servant, DR. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Prof. o. p.
Nietzsche To His Publisher - May, 1879 Bâle, Beginning of May, 1879. DEAR SIR: I have resigned my professorship and am going into the mountains. I am on the verge of desperation and have scarcely any hope left. My sufferings have been too great, too persistent. A HALF-BLIND MAN.
Ruling of the Governing Body of Bale University - June, 1879 June 14, 1879. Professor Dr. Friedrich Nietzsche is to be given leave to resign his post on June 30, 1879, with the deep thanks of the Governing Board for his excellent services, together with the grant of a yearly pension of 1,000 francs for the period of six years.
N. B.—The Governors have decided to allow him in addition for a period of six years a yearly pension of 1,000 francs from the Hensler Fund, while the Academic Society has, in the name of a few friends, guaranteed an additional allowance of from 500 to 1,000 francs for the same period of time. Note by Frau F.N.: "My brother received this pension which in all amounted to 3,000 francs per annum from July, 1879, to January, 1889. From that date the grant of 1,000 francs per annum from the Governing Board ceased, so that he received only the 1,000 francs from the Hensler fund and 1,000 francs from the Academic Society. As on various occasions Professor Overbeck had hinted that the payment of these 2,000 francs was considered a burden at Bâle, and my brother had felt uneasy about the matter from the very beginning, directly after our mother's death at Easter, 1897, I begged my sick brother's newly constituted body of guardians to write thanking the authorities at Bâle for their past kindness, and begging them to discontinue it, as I wished to take sole responsibility for the dear invalid."
Nietzsche To Peter Gast - September, 1879 Address, St. Moriz-Dorf, Poste Restante. September 11, 1879. DEAR, DEAR FRIEND: When you read these lines my MS. will already have reached you; it may deliver its own request to you; I have not the courage to do so. But you must share a few of the moments of joy that I now feel over my completed work. I am at the end of my thirty-fifth year—"the middle of life," as people for a century and a half used to say of this age. It was at this age that Dante had his vision, and in the opening lines of his poem he mentions the fact. Now I am in the middle of life and so "encircled by death" that at any minute it can lay hold of me. From the nature of my sufferings I must reckon upon a sudden death through convulsions (although I should prefer a hundred times a slow, lucid death, before which I should be able to converse with my friends, even if it were more painful). In this way I feel like the oldest of men, even from the standpoint of having completed my life-task. I have poured out a salutary drop of oil; this I know, and I shall not be forgotten for it. At bottom I have already undergone the test of my own view of life: many more will have to undergo it after me. Up to the present my spirit has not been depressed by the unremitting suffering that my ailments have caused me; at times I even feel more cheerful and more benevolent than I ever felt in my life before; to what do I owe this invigorating and ameliorating effect? Certainly not to my fellow men; for, with but few exceptions, they have all during the last few years shown themselves "offended" by me;See Matthew, xxvi, 28. nor have they shrunk from letting me know it. Just read this last MS. through, my dear friend, and ask yourself whether there are any traces of suffering or depression to be found in it. I don't believe there are, and this very belief is a sign that there must be powers concealed in these views, and not the proofs of impotence and lassitude after which my enemies will seek.
Now I shall not rest until I have sent those pages, transcribed by my self-sacrificing friend and revised by me, to my printers in Chemnitz. I shall not come to you myself—however urgently the Overbecks and my sister may press me to do so; there are states in which it seems to me more fitting to return to the neighbourhood of one's mother, one's home, and the memories of one's childhood. But do not take all this as final and irrevocable. According as his hopes rise or fall, an invalid should be allowed to make or unmake his plans. My programme for the summer is complete: three weeks at a moderate altitude (in Wiesen), three months in the Engadine, and the last month in taking the real St. Moritz drink-cure, the best effect of which is not supposed to be felt before the winter. This working out of a programme was a pleasure to me, but it was not easy! Self-denial in everything (I had no friends, no company; I could read no books; all art was far removed from me; a small bedroom with a bed, the food of an ascetic—which by the bye suited me excellently, for I have had no indigestion the whole of the summer) this self-denial was complete except for one point I gave myself up to my thoughts what else could I do! Of course, this was the very worst thing for my head, but I still do not see how I could have avoided it. But enough; this winter my programme will be to recover from myself, to rest myself away from my thoughts—for years I have not had this experience. Perhaps in Naumburg I shall be able so to arrange my day as to profit by this repose. But first of all the "sequel"—The Wanderer and his Shadow!
Your last letter full of ideas pleased Overbeck and me so much that I allowed him to take it with him to Zurich to read to his womenfolk there. Forgive me for having done this. And forgive me for more important things! Your friend, N.
Nietzsche To Peter Gast - October, 1879 Naumburg, October 5, 1879. DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday morning I posted my card to you; and three hours later I received fresh proof of your indefatigable kindness towards me. If only I could fulfill your wishes! "But thoughts are too remote," as Tieck sings. You would scarcely believe how faithfully I have carried out the programme of thoughtlessness; and I have reasons for being faithful in this respect; for "behind thought stands the devil" This is a playful variation of the Spanish proverb: "Detrás de la Cruz está el diablo."—Translator. of a frantic attack of pain. The MS. that reached you at St. Moritz was produced at such a very heavy price that probably no one who could have helped it would ever have written it at such cost. I am now often filled with horror when reading my own MSS., especially the more lengthy portions owing to the odious memories they awaken. The whole of it, with the exception of a few lines, was thought out while walking and scribbled down in pencil in six small note books; almost every time I tried to re-write a passage, I failed. I was forced to omit about twenty somewhat lengthy lines of thought. Unfortunately they were most important; but I had not the time to decipher my most illegible pencil scrawl. The same thing happened to me last summer. I cannot after wards recall the slender connection of thought. For, in order to steal away those minutes and quarters of an hour of "cerebral energy" of which you speak, I have to rob them from a suffering brain. At present I feel as if I could never do it again. I read your transcript, and have all the difficulty in the world in understanding myself—my head is so tired.
The Sorrento MS. has gone to the deuce; my removal and final farewell to Bâle made many a radical change in my affairs and it was a good thing for me, because old MSS. such as those always frown at me like debtors.
Dear friend, as to Luther, it is a long time since I have been able with honesty to say anything to his credit; this is the outcome of a mass of material about him to which Jacob Burckhardt called my attention. I refer to Janssen's "History of the German People" (Vol. II) that appeared this year (I have it). The voice in this book is, for once, not that of a Protestant falsification of history, which is the one we have been taught to believe. At present, the fact that we prefer Luther as a man to Ignatius Loyola strikes me as being no more than our national taste in north and south! That odious, arrogant, and biliously-envious diabolical wrangling affected by Luther—who was never happy unless he was able to spit on someone in his wrath—nauseated me beyond endurance. Certainly you are right when you speak of "the promotion of European democratization" through Luther, but this raving enemy of the peasant (who ordered them to be slaughtered like mad dogs, and himself assured the princes that the kingdom of Heaven could be won by the killing and strangling of peasant cattle) was certainly one of its most unwilling promo ters. Yours is, by-the-bye, the fairer attitude towards the man. But just give me time! Many thanks to you also for the other lacunae you pointed out to me. This is most impotent gratitude, I'm afraid. Here again my "wish of wishes" occurs to me. Well, I have been thinking lately of my friend Gast, not actually as an author—there are so many ways of testifying to an inward condition of maturity and health attained. In the first place of you as an artist! After Aeschylus came Sophocles! I would rather not tell you more plainly what I hope. And now for a word of truth about you as a creature of brains and heart: what a start you have of me, making allowance for the difference of years, and that which years bring with them! Once more let me tell you a home-truth: I consider you a better and more gifted man than I am, and consequently a man with greater obligations...With sincere affection, Your friend whose hopes are in you, N.
Nietzsche To Peter Gast - July, 1880 Marienbad, July 18, 1880. MY DEAR FRIEND: I still cannot help thinking several times a day of the delightful pampering I had in Venice and of the still more delightful pamperer, and all I can say is that one cannot have such good times for long and that it is only right I should once more be an anchorite and as such go walking for ten hours a day, drink fateful doses of water and await their effect. Meanwhile I burrow eagerly inside my moral mines and at times feel quite subterranean in the process—at present I seem to feel as if I had now discovered the principal artery and outlet. But this is the sort of belief that may return a hundred times only to be rejected. Now and again an echo of Chopin's music rings in my ears, and this much you have achieved, that at such moments I always think of you and lose myself in meditating about possibilities. My trust in you has grown very great; you are built much more soundly than I suspected, and apart from the evil influence that Herr Nietzsche has exercised over you from time to time, you are in every respect well conditioned. Ceterum censeo mountains and woods are better than towns and Paris is better than Vienna.
On the way I made friends with a high dignitary of the Church, who was apparently one of the earliest promoters of old Catholic music; he was up to every question of detail. I found he was much interested in the work Wagner did in regard to Palestrina's music. He said that dramatic recitative (in the liturgy) was the core of Church music, and accordingly wished the interpretation of such music to be as dramatic as possible. In his opinion Regensburg was the only place on earth where old music could be studied and above all heard (particularly in Passion week).
Have you heard about the fire at Mommsen'sNote by Peter Gast—Fires seem to have marked out Roman historians as their particular victims. Niebuhr lost the second volume of his Roman History in a fire which occurred Feb. 6th, 1830. house and that his notes have all been destroyed—perhaps the most extensive collection of documents ever made by a living scholar? It appears that he dashed into the flames again and again, and that at last, covered with burns as he was, they were obliged to restrain him by force. Such tasks as the one Mommsen had undertaken must be very rare; for the colossal memory and corresponding acumen in criticism and arrangement necessary for dealing with such a mass of material are seldom united in one man; they are more often in conflict. When I heard of the affair my heart was in my mouth with horror, and even now I feel genuine physical anguish when I think of it. Is that pity? But what is Mommsen to me? I am in no way favorably inclined towards him.
Here in the lonely sylvan hermitage of which I am the hermit, there has been a good deal of trouble ever since yesterday. I do not know exactly what has happened, but the shadow of a crime seems to lie on the house. Someone buried something; others discovered it; a good deal of lamentation was heard; a number of gendarmes appeared on the scene; the house was searched and during the night in the room next door to mine I heard someone sighing heavily, as if in great pain, and I could not sleep. Then in the middle of the night I heard sounds as if something were being buried in the wood, but whoever was engaged in the work was surprised, and once more there were tears and cries. An official told me that it was a "banknote" affair—I am not sufficiently inquisitive to know as much about my surroundings as all the world probably knows about me. Suffice it to say that the solitude of the woods is uncanny.
I have been reading a story by Mérimée, in which Henry Beyle's character is said to be described. It is called "The Etruscan Vase"; if this is true, Stendhal is St. Clair. The whole thing is ironical, distinguished and deeply melancholic.
In conclusion listen to an idea I have had: one ceases from loving oneself properly when one ceases from exercising oneself in love towards others, wherefore the latter (the ceasing from exercising, etc.) ought to be strongly deprecated. (This is from my own experience.)
Fare you well, my beloved and much valued friend. May things go well with you night and day. Your devoted, F. N.
Nietzsche To Peter Gast - August, 1880 Marienbad, August 20, 1880. MY DEAR FRIEND GAST: Your letter chimed in with my harvest-, or rather harvest-festival mood, a little dismally, it is true, but so well and powerfully that today I once more, as usual, end my meditations about you with the chorale "What Gast achieved is well achieved, For just are his intentions. Amen."An old German hymn: "What God achieves, is well achieved," etc.—Translator. You are built of stouter material than I am and you are entitled to set yourself higher ideals. For my part I suffer terribly when I lack sympathy; nothing can compensate me, for instance, for the fact that for the last few years I have lost Wagner's friendly interest in my fate. How often do I not dream of him, and always in the spirit of our former intimate companionship! No words of anger have ever passed between us, not even in my dreams—on the contrary, only words of encouragement and good cheer, and with no one have I ever laughed so much as with him. All this is now a thing of the past—and what does it avail that in many respects I am right and he is wrong? As if our lost friendship could be forgotten on that account! And to think that I had already suffered similar experiences before, and am likely to suffer them again! They constitute the cruellest sacrifices that my path in life and thought has exacted from me—and even now the whole of my philosophy totters after one hour's sympathetic intercourse even with total strangers! It seems to me so