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Nice, January 9, 1887: Dear friend, my card was sent shortly before the arrival of your letter: for the latter, many thanks. Hopefully your health is improving under the good care that you have; particularly with eye problems it seems to me to be least good "that man be alone." It's a hard winter here as well; instead of snow we have had rain for days on end; the nearby hills have been white for a long time (which looks like a coquetry of nature with its checkered and richly colored landscape). This "colorfulness" also includes my blue fingers;1 likewise my black thoughts. I have just been reading, with thoughts of that kind, Simplicius' commentary2 on Epictetus: with him we see clearly before us the entire philosophical scheme in which Christianity was delineated: so that this "pagan" philosopher's book makes the most Christian impression imaginable (except that the whole world of Christian emotion and pathology is missing, "love," as Paul speaks of it, "fear of God," etc.). The falsification of everything factual by morality stands there in fullest clarity: wretched psychology; the "philosopher" reduced to "country parson." — And it is all Plato's fault! He remains Europe's greatest misfortune! Your N. 1. Nietzsche's room had no heat.
Nice, March 7, 1887: Dear friend, I have just received, thanks to your considerate assistance, the proofs of the "songs" — I am pleased to report to you that these are the final proofs.1 As for the "fifth" book, this manuscript has been in Fritzsch's2 possession for several months and I was willing to pay for its printing myself; said Leipziger seems hardly agreeable.3 Enough, let us leave it unpublished for now; perhaps its tone and content even belongs more to Beyond G[ood] and E[vil] and should be incorporated into this work with a second edition — or more correctly, as it now seems to me, into this Joyful Science: so that a "higher meaning," a reasonable patch of blue sky can finally be seen behind my publisher's reluctance. And what publisher would not be somewhat frightened after weighing down my literature with his blunders? I have not even once made things adversarial; for 15 years not a single serious, thorough, proper and professional review of my books has ever been published — in short, one has to blame this on Fritzsch. — What a situation I would be in, assuming that the ten years in philology and Basel were missing from my life! — A philologist with a kindred history has just come here to visit me, a Dr. Adams,4 brought up in the school of Rohde and v. Gutschmidt [sic],5 and very highly regarded by his teachers, but — passionately disgusted with and biased against philology. He fled to me, "his master" — for he wants to dedicate himself absolutely to philosophy; and now I'm persuading him bit by bit not to do anything stupid and let himself be carried away by any false role models. I think I have managed to "disappoint" him. — At the same time I learned how, even at the Tübingen seminary, my writings are greedily devoured in secret; there I am considered to be one of the "more negative spirits." — Dr. Adams is half American, half Swabian. — It happened to me with Dostoyevsky like before with Stendhal: the most casual contact, a book that one opens in a bookstore, unfamiliarity even with the name — and suddenly instinct says that here one has met a kinsman.6 So far I still know little about his position, his reputation, his history: he died in 1881. In his youth he was in a bad way: illness, poverty, with noble lineage, sentenced to death at twenty-seven, reprieved on the scaffold, then 4 years in Siberia, in chains, among hardened criminals. This period was decisive: he discovered the power of his psychological intuition, even more, his heart sweetened and deepened in the process — his book of recollections from this period "la maison des morts" is one of the most "human" books in existence.7 What I first became familiar with had just appeared in French translation, entitled "l'esprit souterrain,"8 containing two short stories: the first a kind of strange music, the second a true stroke of psychological genius — a shocking and cruel piece of mockery of I will stay here until April 3, hopefully without making further acquaintance with the earthquake:12 in fact, that Dr. Falb13 warns about March 9, when he expects an increase in tremors in our region, and likewise the 22 and 23 of March. So far, I've kept pretty cold-blooded, and among the thousands of panicking people, have lived with a sense of irony and cold curiosity. But we should not boast too much: perhaps in a few days I'll be as irrational as anyone. The element of the unexpected, the imprévu, has its charm ... How are you? Oh how your last letter has revitalized me! You are so brave! Your faithful friend N. 1. For the new edition of The Joyful Science.
Nice, March 23, 1887: Dear sir, You do me so much honor in your just received letter1 that I cannot help but reveal to you another passage from my literature concerning the Jews: although it puts you doubly in the right to talk about my "warped judgments." Please read my "Morgenröte," p. 194.2 Jews are, objectively speaking, more interesting to me than Germans: their history yields many fundamental problems. In such serious matters, I am used to keeping sympathy and antipathy out of the question: as these pertain to the discipline and morality of the scientific spirit and — ultimately — even to its sense of taste. At any rate, I confess that I feel myself too estranged from the current "German spirit," to be able to view its particular idiosyncrasies without much impatience. Along with these I account, in particular, anti-Semitism. I am even indebted for some entertainment to the "classic literature" of this movement praised on p. 6 of your prized sheet: oh if you knew how, last spring, I had laughed at the books of that pompous and sentimental blockhead named Paul de Lagarde! Obviously I am deficient in that "highest ethical position" discussed on that page.3 It now remains to thank you for your well-meaning assumption that I have not been "led to my warped judgments by any social considerations"; and perhaps it will serve your peace of mind if finally I tell you that among my friends, I have no Jews. But also no anti-Semites.4 Does my life somehow furnish the likelihood for it, for the fact that by some hands my "wings can be clipped"? — With this question I commend myself to your further goodwill — and consideration ... Yours most sincerely One wish: do provide a list5 of German scholars, artists, poets, writers, actors, and virtuosos of Jewish extraction or descent!6 It would constitute a valuable contribution to the history of German culture (— and criticism of it!)7 1. Unfortunately, Fritsch's letter is lost and we can only glean its contents from the brief sarcastic quotations by Nietzsche.
Nice, March 24, 1887: Dear friend, I have just received your news — and given that I will be leaving (and must leave) at the end of next week, there is one more reason to answer you immediately. I wish that I could have written: "till we meet again," but my health for the time being forbids me Zurich1 and everything connected with it: I feel peculiarly weak all the time, tired, mentally and physically listless and good for nothing, also so impatient with noise and all the small nuisances of life that I want to take refuge in some very quiet and remote place: namely, in a wooded place fit for strolling along Lago Maggiore — called Canobbio [sic].2 In the vicinity of it is Villa Badia, a pension well recommended to me; the owners are Swiss. I have booked a room there from April 4. Venice, which has tradition in its favor in the early spring, and which I wholeheartedly love (the only place on earth that I love), has become bad for me over the years: the reason being certain meteorological factors, which I know only too well. — Is it possible for me to get the 1,000 francs3 by Wednesday or Thursday of next week? — A Dr. Adams4 is here for about a month, an apparently gifted and able philologist from the school of Rohde and Gutschmidt [sic],5 but passionately disgusted with all of philology and quite determined to dedicate himself to philosophy: which is why he made his pilgrimage here to see his "master." Perhaps I will manage to disappoint him and extricate him from the vagueness of such intentions: I am gently leading him toward the history of philosophy (so far he has worked on "de fontibus Diodori"6) — it is even not impossible that he takes up my abandoned Laertiana!7 The whole thing is actually a strain on me, which reminds me of an earlier one (Tautenburg summer 1882);8 and, in the end, I know enough about the world to get what "the world's reward" is in such cases. — I don't like the "young people."— Here is a comic fact of which I am becoming more and more aware. Gradually, I've had an "influence," very subterranean, as is self-evident. I enjoy a strange and almost mysterious reputation with all radical parties (socialists, nihilists, anti-Semites, orthodox Christ[ians], Wagnerians). The extreme purity of the atmosphere in which I have placed myself is seductive ... I can even abuse my outspokenness, I can inveigh, as I did in my last book9 — they anguish over it, they "adjure" me perhaps, but they cannot escape me. In the "Anti-Semitic Correspondence" (which is sent only privately, only to "reliable party members") my name appears in almost every issue. The anti-Semites are enamored with Zarathustra, "the divine man"; and there is a particular anti-Semitic interpretation of it, which made me laugh greatly.10 Incidentally, I have made "in competent quarters" the suggestion a thorough list be made of German scholars, artists, writers, actors, virtuosos of entirely or half-Jewish descent: that would make a good contribution to the history of German culture, and criticism of it.11 (In all this, between ourselves, my brother-in-law is not involved at all; my dealings with him are very polite, but aloof, and as infrequent as possible. His undertaking in Paraguay is thriving, by the way; my sister is too.)12 If it isn't any better for me in Canobbio [sic], I think I'll try a small cold-water cure in Brestenberg. Alas, everything in my life is so uncertain and shaky, and at the same time this horrible health! The need, on the other hand, is upon me with the weight of a hundred centners, to build a coherent structure of thought — and for this I need five or six prerequisites, all of which I still lack and even seem unattainable! — The fourth floor of the Pension de Genève, in which the 3rd and 4th parts of my Zarathustra came into being, is now completely demolished after being shaken down by the earthquake. This "transience" hurts me. — The ground still shakes sometimes. With kind regards and wishes, also to your dear wife, Your faithful friend, (Hopefully there is good news from Tenerife?)13 I have a copy of Lecky: Englishmen like him lack "the historical sense" and many other things as well. The same is true of the much-read and translated American Draper. — 14 1. They were planning to visit Zurich to attend a performance of "Mizka-Czardàs," a composition by Heinrich Köselitz that Nietzsche had promised to present to his friend Friedrich Hegar (1841-1927). Hegar, whom Nietzsche had met while visiting Richard Wagner, was the founder and director of the music conservatory in Zurich, the conductor of the Zurich Symphony, and a close friend of Johannes Brahms. Overbeck and Nietzsche eventually got together on May 1. Nice, March 27, 1887: Dear friend, I am having trouble with my eyes: forgive me if I thank you merely with a postcard for your letter and the just-received Dostoyevsky-translation.1 I am glad that you, presumably, have first read the same [work] of his that I did — "The Landlady" (in French as the first part of the novel L'esprit souterrain)[.]2 I am sending you "Humiliés et offensés"3 for comparison: the French translate more delicately than the dreadful Jew Goldschmidt4 (with his synagoge rhythm) — Strange! In the meantime, I fancy that you have returned to your Nausicaa5: and I have already wished you happiness and health as well, in a dream, of course — and likewise for me: for my need for a golden-saturated, purified luminous art has become intense like a thirst. — There are still proofsheets [to correct]: help, dear friend!6 — I am leaving on Sunday, the 3rd of April; my address from then on: Canobbio [sic]7 (Lago maggiore) Villa Badia. Italia. Faithfully your friend N. 1. Erzählungen. F.M. Dostojewskij. Frei nach dem Russischen von Wilhelm Goldschmidt. Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, [1886]. [Series: Universal-Bibliothek, 2126. Contents: Einleitung [Translator's introduction (2 pp.)]. Die Wirtin [The Landlady]. Christbaum und Hochzeit [A Christmas Tree and a Wedding]. Helle Nächte [White Nights]. Weihnacht [The Little Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree]. Der ehrliche Dieb [An Honest Thief].]
Nice, March 29, 1887: Dear sir, Herewith I am returning to you the three issues of your correspondence sheet,1 thanking you for your confidence which you permitted me to cast a glance at the muddle of principles that lie at the heart of this strange movement. Yet I ask in the future not to provide me with these [anti-Semitic] mailings: I fear, in the end, for my patience. Believe me: this abominable "wanting to have a say" of noisy dilettantes about the value of people and races, this subjection to "authorities" who are utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind (e.g., E. Dühring, R. Wagner, Ebrard, Wahrmund, P. de Lagarde — who among these in questions of morality and history is the most unqualified, the most unjust?),2 these constant, absurd falsifications and rationalizations of vague concepts "Germanic," "Semitic," "Aryan," "Christian," "German" — all of that could in the long run cause me to lose my temper and bring me out of the ironic benevolence with which I have hitherto observed the virtuous velleities and pharisaisms of modern Germans. — And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra3 is mouthed by anti-Semites? ... Yours most sincerely 1. Antisemitische Correspondenz und Sprechsaal für innere Partei-Angelegenheiten.
Cannobio, April 14, 1887: Dear friend, Since April 3, I've been here on Lake Maggiore;1 the money2 came into my hands in the nick of time, also it was good for me that you did not send everything: for even today I do not know where I will spend my summer. My old Sils-Maria must, I hate to admit, be put aside, likewise Nice: both places are now lacking the primary and most essential condition, solitude, profound tranquility, apartness, alienation, without which I cannot get down to my problems (for, between you and me, I am, in a literally terrifying sense, a man of the depths; and without this underground work, life is no longer bearable to me). My last winter in Nice became an ordeal, just like my last stay in Sils: because I lost that quiet seclusion, which is a condition of existence for me, also the only way to get healthy. My health has declined from year to year; and it is a reliable benchmark for me if I am on my path — or on that of another. The problems that weigh on me, the ones I no longer evade (how I have to pay for all my evasions! E.g. my philology!) from which I have no rest by day or night — they exact for each failed relationship (people, places, books) a cruel revenge. I tell this to you, for may I assume that the peculiar requirements of my creativity are understood by you? It seems to me that I am too gentle towards people, too considerate, so that wherever I live people soon make demands of me and I finally no longer know how to defend myself against them. This consideration prevents me e.g. from trying to live in Munich* for the first time, where I already have a lot of goodwill,3 but where no one lives who has respect for the first and most essential conditions of my existence — or would even be willing to create them for me. Nothing agitates people so much than realizing that one is treating them with a severity that they themselves do not feel they deserve. There is nothing more paralyzing or disheartening to me than to travel into Germany now and to take a closer look at the many sincere persons who believe that they are "well disposed" towards me. In the meantime, precisely all understanding of me is lacking; and, if my probability-reckoning does not deceive me, it will not be different before 1901. I think people would just consider me to be mad if I let it be known what I consider myself to be. It is part of my "humanity" to let the universal ambiguity about me remain: I would embitter my most respectable friends against me and that would do no one good. Meanwhile, I am done with a good bit of work, with the revision and republishing of my earlier writings. Suppose that I were not to last much longer — and I do not always conceal a profound longing for death — then something remains of me, a cultural piece, that, in the meantime, nothing else can replace. (This winter I have browsed a great deal of our European literature, so that I can now say that my philosophical position is by far the most independent, despite how much I feel myself to be the inheritor of several millennia: contemporary Europe still has no idea of the frightful decisions about which my whole being revolves, and on which wheel of problems I am bound — and that with me a catastrophe is being prepared, whose name4 I know but will not utter.) Assume, dear friend, that I will still be here until around the end of April. How to get to Brestenberg from here, where I would like to go for a massage treatment (month of May)? Mammern is also recommended to me.5 I enclose a letter from my Venetian proofreader,6 we are enthusiastic about the printing of The Joy[ful] Science. You may infer from the letter my apologies if I have to return herewith my invitation to Zürich, to listen to the Mizka-Czardàs.7 By all means I want to talk with you one day this spring. Your faithful friend, Address: Cannobio (Lago maggiore) Villa Badia In the list of tourists at Villa Badia from 1885 I find Mademoiselle Maria Overbeck of Dresden.8 Cordial greetings to your wife and thanks for the good news from Tenerife.9 The journey here, very wintry, interrupted (like all my journeys) by a violent outburst of my headaches. A terrible ice-cold night in Laveno with constant vomiting. — The day before yesterday and yesterday repeated bouts of the illness. Today relief. * I need a place with a big library10 for my "interludes"; and most recently I thought of Stuttgart. They have sent me the very liberal rules for the Stuttgart library. 1. In northern Italy.
Venice, October 22, 1887: Esteemed sir, There was a time when you passed the most well-deserved death sentence on a piece of music1 by me that is possible in rebus musicis et musicantibus.2 And now, despite everything, I still dare to send you something — a Hymn to Life,3 which I wish all the more to survive. It should be sung some day, either in the near or distant future, in memory of me, in memory of a philosopher who had no present and didn't actually want one. Does he deserve that? ... On top of all this, it may be possible that over the past ten years I have learned something as a musician as well. Devoted to you, very esteemed sir, with Dr. Fr. Nietzsche. 1. Nietzsche's 1872 piano composition, "Manfred-Meditation." Cf. Munich, 07-24-1872: Letter from Hans von Bülow to Nietzsche in Basel. In German. In English.
Nice, November 11, 1887: Dear friend, It seems to me that I still have something to make amends for with regard to you from this spring.1 As a sign that I do not lack the goodwill to do so, I am sending you herewith a just published work2 (— moreover, perhaps I even owe it to you, for it stands in very close connection with the last one3 I sent —). No, don't let yourself be estranged from me so easily! At my age and in my isolation I at least shall not lose anymore the few people in whom I once had confidence. Your N. Nota bene. Regarding M. Taine, I ask you to come to your senses. Such rude things as you say and think about him annoy me.4 I would forgive Prince Napoleon5 for such things; not my friend Rohde. It is hard to believe that anyone who misunderstands this kind of austere and magnanimous mind (— T[aine] is the educator of all the more serious learned characters in France today) can understand anything of my own task. Frankly, you've never said a word to me that might have allowed me to suppose you knew what destiny lies upon me. Have I ever reproached you for this? Not even in my heart; even if it's only because I'm not at all used to it from anyone else. Up to now, who has obliged me with even a thousandth part of passion and pain! Has anyone had even the faintest idea of the real cause of my long illness, which I have perhaps overcome yet again? I now have 43 years behind me and am just as alone as when I was a child. — 1. In a lost letter to Nietzsche, Rohde had made a disparaging remark about Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893), the French historian and critic. This drew Nietzsche's ire, as well as a remark belittling Rohde. Rohde never replied to any of Nietzsche's correspondence after the dispute.
Nice, November 12, 1887: Dear friend, For your birthday1 I have already forwarded a few small gifts: the Hymn to Life*,2 likewise the latest (and, for a long time, the last) book.3 Today I not only add my wishes for your upcoming birthday (for your health, for your struggle with rheumatism and scholasticism!..4): above all, the expression of my respect and gratitude for the unwavering loyalty to me that you have demonstrated in the hardest and most absurd time of my life. It seems to me that a kind of epoch is coming to a close for me; a retrospective is more than ever in order. Ten years of illness, more than ten years; and not the common sort of illness for which there are doctors and medicines. Does anyone actually know what made me ill? what kept me for years close to death and yearning for death? I don't think so. If I exclude R. Wagner, then no one so far has come to me with a thousandth part of passion and pain in order for them to "understand" me; I was alone like this even as a child, I still am today, in my 44th year of life. This terrible decade that I have put behind me has given me a generous taste of what being alone means, what isolation to this degree means: the isolation and defenselessness of a sufferer who has no means to protect himself, even "to defend" himself. In the last ten years, my friend Overbeck has charged (and three people at that) almost everyone I know, with assaulting me with absurdities, be it with outrageous accusations or at a minimum in the form of a vile immodesty (recently even Rohde, that incorrigible boor5). The best thing I can say about it is that it made me more independent; but perhaps also harder and more misanthropic than I would like to have been. Fortunately, I have enough esprit gaillard6 in me to laugh at myself occasionally about these reminiscences, as I laugh at everything that touches only me; and besides, I have a task that does not allow me to think about myself much (a task, a destiny or whatever you want to call it). This task has made me ill, it will make me healthy again, and not only healthy, but also friendlier to people again and whatever that implies. — Fortunately I received the money,7 without which it would have been difficult for me. I now think of Nice in the same way as Sils-Maria: I am trying to come to terms with it and bring to the fore its proven factors: its invigorating and exhilarating climate, its abundance of light (which permits me the use of my eyes, which is beyond all measure afforded elsewhere, namely in Germany). The Pension de Genève, awaiting with improved efficiency and a lot of future goodwill, this time has prepared for me a real study (with modifications of light and color, which are absolutely important for me); a small carbon-natron stove is on its way to me from Naumburg.8 I'm paying a little more than before (5½ frs. per day, room and 2 meals: I obtain my morning tea myself); but, between you and me, every other guest pays more (8-10 frs.). By the way: a torture for my pride!!! — You know what I now require for myself: my locales should therefore remain Nice and Sils-Maria (Venice as an interlude: I have a wonderful memory of Köselitz, who has been able to preserve his kind and great soul despite all kinds of disappointment, and now makes music for which I have no other word than "classic" (two movements of a symphony e.g., the most beautiful "Claude Lorrain" in music I know).9 Wishing you and your dear wife a happy and good day, Your N. Prof. Deussen sends you his greetings; he was in Athens this autumn. I got from him a laurel and fig leaf, picked from where the Academy of Plato once stood.10 The bill from C. G. Naumann for the cost of the new book is also due to arrive this week or so; I'll send it to you right away.11 * The hymn is intended to be sung one day "in my memory": let's say around a hundred years from today, if one has understood what I'm all about. 1. November 16. Nice (France), November 16, 1887: Dear friend, You will now have returned happily from your odyssey1 to your professional harbor: I wish you a happy and student-rich winter and a Forward in every sense upon your path (without obstructions, (without "quarantines"2 —) The beautiful symbolism of your deed3 on October 15th touched me deeply: — perhaps this old Plato is my true great adversary? But how proud I am to have such an adversary! — Remember me fondly!4 Your A warm greeting to your brave little comrade!5 1. Paul Deussen visited Nietzsche in September 1887, while on vacation. His travels took him to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Switzerland. Copenhagen, November 26, 1887: Dear sir! A year ago, courtesy of your publisher, I received your work Beyond Good and Evil; recently I got your latest book in the same way. Besides these I own "Human, All Too Human." I had just sent the two volumes, which I own, to the bookbinder when the work "On the Genealogy of Morality" arrived, so I have not been able to compare it with the previous ones, as I intend to do. Bit by bit, I will read everything of yours carefully. But this time I am prompted to express to you forthwith my solemn thanks for the items sent to me. It is an honor for me to be known by you, and similarly to have it known that you have thought of winning me as a reader. A new and original spirit breathes from your books. I still do not fully understand what I have read; I do not always know what your point is. But a great deal agrees with my own thoughts and sympathies, the disdain for the ascetic ideal and deep dissatisfaction with democratic mediocrity, your aristocratic radicalism. Your contempt for the morality of pity is not yet clear to me. Also, in the other work, reflections about women in general are not in agreement with my own line of thought. You are organized in such a completely different way than I am that I experience difficulty in empathizing.1 Despite your universality, you are very German in your way of thinking and writing. You are among the few people with whom I wish to converse. I know nothing about you. I see, with astonishment, that you are a professor with doctorate. In any case, I congratulate you as well that you are intellectually so little of the professor. I do not know what you know of me. My writings merely try to solve modest problems. The majority of them only exist in Danish. I have not written in German for several years. I believe I have my best audience in Slavic countries. I have held lectures in the French language for two consecutive years in Warsaw, and this year in [St.] Petersburg and Moscow. Thus I endeavor to break out of the confines of my native land. Though no longer young, I am still one of the most intellectually curious, inquisitive men. Therefore, you will not find me closed off from your thoughts, even when I think and feel differently. I'm often stupid, but never narrow-minded in the least. Favor me with a few lines if you think it worthwhile. Most indebted to you, 1. Cf. Georg Brandes, Copenhagen, 04-20-1890: Letter to August Strindberg in Värmdö, Sweden in response to a 04-12-1890 letter from Strindberg. See "August Strindberg — Georg Brandes: Breve." In: Tilskueren, 97-122 (104-106). In his letter, Brandes warns: "De maa endelig ikke fordybe Dem saaledes i Nietzsche. Der er et Element i ham som er at bruge, et andet, som leder Følelsen og Tanken vild. De er som Poet ikke mistroisk nok overfor Idégange. / Naturligvis skal de fattige i Aanden ikke ovenpaa, men ligesaa sikkert har den Undertrykte sin Ret, og N.s Lære kan løbe ud i Proklameren af den brutale Ret til at undertrykke." (Whatever you do, you must not immerse yourself so in Nietzsche. There is an element in him which can be used, and another which leads feeling and thought astray. As a poet you are not suspicious enough when faced with trains of thought. / Naturally the poor in spirit must not be allowed to dominate; but just as surely, the oppressed man has his rights, and N's teaching can develop into a proclamation of the brutal right to oppress.) Translation in: Walton Glyn Jones, Georg Brandes: Selected Letters. Norwich: Norvik Press, 1990, 164. Nice, December 2, 1887: Esteemed sir, A few readers whom one personally honors and no other readers — that is, in fact, one of my wishes. As for the latter part of this wish, I of course see more and more that it remains unfulfilled. I am all the more happy that, for me, the pauci are not lacking from the "satis sunt pauci"1 and have never been lacking. Of the living among them I would mention (to name those with whom you are familiar) my excellent friend Jacob Burckhardt, Hans von Bülow, Ms. Taine,2 the Swiss poet Keller3; of the dead, the old Hegelian Bruno Bauer4 and Richard Wagner. It is a real pleasure to me that such a good European and missionary of culture, as you are, will henceforth belong among them: I thank you with all my heart for this goodwill. Of course this will cause you some trouble. I myself have no doubt that my writings are still in some way "very German"; you will of course feel this much more strongly, spoiled as you are by yourself, I mean by the free and graceful French manner with which you handle the language (a more sociable manner compared to mine).5 Many words have become for me encrusted with other salts and have a different taste for me than for my readers: this must be taken into account. In the scale of my experiences and circumstances is the preponderance of the rarer, remoter, thinner pitches versus the normal, middle ones. I also have (to speak like an old musician, which I actually am) an ear for quarter-tones. Finally — and what for the most part makes my books obscure — there is within me a distrust of dialectic, even of reasons. What a person already maintains as "true" or not yet true, seems to me more due to courage, to the strength of his courage ... (Only rarely do I have the courage for what I actually know).6 The expression "aristocratic radicalism," which you use,7 is very good. That is, if I may say so, the shrewdest remark that I have ever read about me. How far this way of thinking has already guided my thoughts, how far it will still guide me — I'm almost afraid to imagine. But there are paths that don't permit one to turn back; and so I go forward, because I must go forward. So that I do not fail to do everything on my part to facilitate your access to my cave, that is to say, to my philosophy, my Leipzig publisher shall send you my earlier writings en bloc. In particular, I recommend that you read the new prefaces (almost all of them have been republished). These prefaces, read in order, may perhaps shed some light upon me, provided that I am not intrinsically obscure (obscure in and for myself), like obscurissimus obscurorum virorum8 ... — This could indeed be possible. — Are you a musician? A choral and orchestral work of mine is just being published, a Hymn to Life.9 The same composition is meant to survive and to be sung one day "in my memory": assuming that enough of the rest of me survives. You see with what kind of posthumous thoughts I live. But a philosophy like mine is like a grave — one no longer lives with [anyone]. "Bene vixit qui bene latuit"10 — that is what's on Descartes' tombstone. A grave inscription, no doubt! It is also my wish to meet you one day.11 Your NB. I am staying in Nice this winter. My summer address is: Sils-Maria, Upper Engadine, Switzerland.— I've given up my university professorship. I'm three-quarters blind. 1. "A few are enough." Cf. seventh letter of Seneca in Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium (Letters from a Stoic: Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium. Translated by Robin Campbell. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969: 42-44):
Nice, December 14, 1887: Dear and worthy friend, It was a very good moment to write me such a letter.1 For I am — almost without willing it, but in accordance with an inexorable necessity — right in the midst of settling up with people and things near to me and putting aside my entire "heretofore." Almost everything that I now do is a drawing-a-line-under2 everything. The vehemence of my inner vibrations has been frightening throughout the past years; now when I have to proceed with a new and higher form, I will need first of all a new estrangement, an even greater depersonalization. So it is essential what and who still remains for me. — How old am I really anyway? I do not know; nor how young I shall become. — I look at your photograph with pleasure; there seems to me to be a lot of youth and courage in it, mixed, as is fitting, with the beginning marks of wisdom (and white hair? ...) In Germany they complain a lot about my "eccentricities."3 But since they do not know where my center is, it will be difficult for them to come across the truth about where and when I have till now been "eccentric." That I was a philologist, for example, meant I was outside my center (which, fortunately, is certainly not to say that I was a bad philologist). Likewise: today it seems to me an eccentricity that I have been a Wagnerian. It was an exceedingly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what meaning it has had for me — it was the strongest test of my character. Gradually, of course, one's inmost self disciplines one back to unity; that passion for which, for a long time, one has no name, rescues us from all digressions and dispersions, that task of which one is the involuntary missionary. Such things are very hard to understand from a distance. My last ten years have thus been exceedingly painful and violent. In case you want to hear more of this very unpleasant and problematic story, I recommend to your friendly interest the new editions of my earlier writings, especially the prefaces to them. (Incidentally: my (for good reasons) somewhat desperate publisher, the excellent E. W. Fritzsch in Leipzig, is prepared to give away these new editions, provided that one promises him a longer essay (on "Nietzsche en bloc"). The bigger literary journals, like Lindau's Nord und Süd,4 are ripe for needing to have such an essay, because a real disquietude and excitement about the meaning of my writings is making itself felt. So far no one has had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to our dear Germans: my problems are new, my psychological horizon is frighteningly extensive, my language bold and clear, there are perhaps no German books richer in ideas and more independent than mine.) — The Hymn5 is also part of the "drawing-a-line-under." Could you not have it sung sometime? I have already been asked from all quarters about having it performed (e.g. Mottl in Carlsruhe).6 It is of course really meant to be sung one day "in remembrance of me": it is meant to be something of mine that will survive, assuming that I myself survive. Keep me in good memory, my dear Doctor: I thank you most warmly for the fact that you want to remain devoted to me in the second half of your century.7 Your friend 1. Cf. Danzig, 11-20-1887: Letter from Carl Fuchs to Nietzsche in Nice. Nice, December 20, 1887: Dear friend, Rarely in my life has a letter brought me such joy as yours of November 30. It seems to me that all that is between us has again been remedied in the most honest and thorough way.1 Such happiness could hardly have been saved for me at a more suitable point in time than the present one. In an important sense, right now my life stands as at full midday: one door is closing, another opening. What I have done in recent years was merely a settling of accounts, a closing of the books, a summing up of the past; I have practically finished with men and things, and have drawn a line under it all. Who and what should remain with me now that I must move on to the actual core of my existence (am condemned to move on ...) that is now the real question. For, between you and me, the tension in which I am living, the pressure of a great task and passion is too great for new people to be able to get close to me now. In fact, the desert around me is vast; I actually tolerate only total strangers and random acquaintances or, on the other hand, those who were close to me from olden days and from childhood. Everyone else has broken away or been repulsed (there was a lot of violence and pain in that —). I was moved to receive as a present just now your letter and your old friendship within it. Something similar happened last summer when Deussen2 suddenly appeared in the Engadine, whom I had not seen for 15 years (— he is the first professor of philosophy who is an admitted Schopenhauerian and maintained that I am the cause of his transformation). I am likewise deeply grateful for all that I owe the Venetian maestro.3 I have visited him almost every year and can tell you without any exaggeration that in rebus musicis et musicantibus4 he is my only hope, my consolation and my pride. For he has all but grown out of me: his music-making, in its depth and kindness of soul and classic taste, is now far above all other music being produced today. That people behave in a dismissive and rude fashion toward him and that he has been through a real ordeal for an entire year due to rejections, tactlessness and German boorishness, all this is not a contradiction. But the moral of the story is this: either one perishes from the adversities of life or comes out stronger because of them. You, too, my dear old friend! You much-tried one! will be able to subscribe to this sentence? — It seems to me that this time I have written you a birthday letter? Just as formerly, in our "good old" times? (I have never for a moment really been disloyal to you: also tell this to your dear wife, along with my warm regards!) In old love and Just published, by E. W. Fritzsch: Hymn to Life. For mixed choir and orchestra composed by Friedrich Nietzsche. Score.5 — Please do read the new edition of The Joyful Science:6 — there is plenty in it to make you laugh. 1. Their friendship was severed by Gersdorff's affair with a woman, Nerina Finochietti, an Italian countess from a disreputable family. He was introduced to her by Malwida von Meysenbug, who later discovered and broadcast her true origins. Gersdorff responded by castigating Meysenbug in his correspondence with her, to which Nietzsche took great offense. Nice, end of December 1887: In the meantime, I've seen proof in black and white that Herr Dr. Förster still has not severed his connection with the anti-S[emitic] movement.1 A schmuck2 and Biedermeyer3 from Leipzig (Fritsch,4 if I remember correctly) undertook the task of — he has been sending me on a regular basis the Anti-S[emitic] Corresp[ondence],5 despite my emphatic protests (I have never read anything more despicable than this Correspondence [tabloid sheet]). Since then I've had difficulty asserting in your favor any of the old tenderness and forbearance I've held toward you for so long, the separation between us is virtually established in the most absurd way. Have you grasped nothing of the reason why I am in the world? Do you want a catalog of the sentiments to which I feel antipodal? You will find them quite neatly next to each other in your husband's "Echoes of P[arsifal]";6 when I read it, the hair-raising idea came to me that you have understood nothing, nothing of my illness, even less about my painful and astonishing experience — that the man7 whom I had most revered had devolved right into a disgusting degeneracy of what I had always despised the most in the swindle of moral and Christian ideals. — Now it has gone so far that I have to defend myself tooth and nail against those who confuse me with these anti-S[emitic] canaille; after my own sister, my former sis[ter], like Widemann8 more recently, has given the impetus to this most disastrous of all confusions. After I actually read the name Z[arathustra] in the Anti-S[emitic] Correspondence, my patience came to an end — I am now in a state of self-defense against the party of your husband. These accursed antics9 of the anti-Semites shall not sully my ideal!! That our name, through your marriage, is comingled with this movement, how I have suffered from it! You've lost all reason and all respect these last 6 years. Heavens, how difficult this is for me! I have, as is fair, never asked you to [understand] something of the position that I occupy as a ph[ilosopher] in my time; you have, nevertheless, with a little instinct for love, been able to avoid it by immediately taking up residence with my antipodes. I am now thinking about sisters in roughly the same way as Sch[openhauer]10 did — they are superfluous, they cause mischief. As a result of the past 10 years, I relish the fact that [I] have lost the indulgent illusion that anyone would know what I'm all about. For years I've been close to death: not the faintest idea from anyone as to why. And when I became well again and gradually so, almost every p[erson] whom I know literally competed to repeatedly call into question my recovery with the most offensive maltreatment: I was gradually on guard to be involved with p[eople] today; for my memory in regard to almost all of them, to everyone I have known up to now, is that I have been shamefully maltreated by them in the hardest times of my life. Until now [I have] of course forgotten no one who has aggrieved me in the last 10 years: [but maybe I'm also still learning that] my memory has little room for my experiences it was, e.g., previously impossible for me to visit the Overbecks in Basel, because I had not forgiven Frau Overbeck that she [had formed] sordid and derogatory opinions about a [creature] of whom I had told her was the only kindred nature that I have come across in my life.11 The same is true of Malvida12 and basically all of my old acquaintances: until this moment, my honor in this respect has not been redressed. The visit of the excel[lent] Deussen13 reminded me of this situation. [....]14 1. Elisabeth's husband, Bernhard Förster (1843-1889), a leader of the German anti-Semitic movement in the late 1870s and founder of the failed Paraguayan colony, "Nueva Germania." Förster eventually committed suicide. The "proof" referred to by Nietzsche was Förster's article "Unsere Arbeit, unsere Ziele!" See above. |
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