[1]SeeTilskueren(Copenhagen) for August and November-December 1889, January, February-March, April and May 1890.
[1]SeeTilskueren(Copenhagen) for August and November-December 1889, January, February-March, April and May 1890.
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND GEORGE BRANDES
1. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, Nov. 26, 1887.
DEAR SIR,
A year ago I received through your publisher your workBeyond Good and Evil; the other day your latest book reached me in the same way. Of your other books I haveHuman, all-too-Human. I had just sent the two volumes I possess to the binder, whenThe Genealogy of Moralsarrived, so that I have not been able to compare it with the earlier works, as I mean to do. By degrees I shall read everything of yours attentively.
This time, however, I am anxious to express at once my sincere thanks for the book sent. It is an honour to me to be known to you, and known in such a way that you should wish to gain me as a reader.
A new and original spirit breathes to me from your books. I do not yet fully understand what I have read; I cannot always see your intention. But I find much that harmonises with my own ideas and sympathies, the depreciation of the ascetic ideals and the profound disgust with democratic mediocrity, your aristocratic radicalism. Your contempt for the morality of pity is not yet clear to me. There were also in the other work some reflections on women in general which did not agree with my own line of thought. Your nature is so absolutely different from mine that it is not easy for me to feel at home. In spite of your universality you are very German in your mode of thinking and writing. You are one of the few people with whom I should enjoy a talk.
I know nothing about you. I see with astonishment that you are a professor and doctor. I congratulate you in any case on being intellectually so little of a professor.
I do not know what you have read of mine. My writings only attempt the solution of modest problems. For the most part they are only to be had in Danish. For many years I have not written German. I have my best public in the Slavonic countries, I believe. I have lectured in Warsaw for two years in succession, and this year in Petersburg and Moscow, in French. Thus I endeavour to break through the narrow limits of my native land.
Although no longer young, I am still one of the most inquisitive of men and one of the most eager to learn. You will therefore not find me closed against your ideas, even when I differ from you in thought and feeling. I am often stupid, but never in the least narrow.
Let me have the pleasure of a few lines if you think it worth the trouble.
Yours gratefully,GEORGE BRANDES.
2. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Nice, Dec. 2, 1887.
MY DEAR SIR,
A few readers whom one honours and beyond them no readers at all—that is really what I desire. As regards the latter part of this wish, I am bound to say my hope of its realisation is growing less and less. All the more happy am Iin satis sunt pauci, that thepaucido not fail and have never failed me. Of the living amongst them I will mention (to name only those whom you are certain to know) my distinguished friend Jakob Burkhardt, Hans von Bülow, H. Taine, and the Swiss poet Keller; of the dead, the old Hegelian Bruno Bauer and Richard Wagner. It gives me sincere pleasure that so good a European and missionary of culture as yourself will in future be numbered amongst them; I thank you with all my heart for this proof of your goodwill.
I am afraid you will find it a difficult position. I myself have no doubt that my writings in one way or another are still "very German." You will, I am sure, feel this all the more markedly, being so spoilt by yourself; I mean, by the free and graceful French way in which you handle the language (a more familiar way than mine). With me a great many words have acquired an incrustation of foreign salts and taste differently on my tongue and on those of my readers. On the scale of my experiences and circumstances the predominance is given to the rarer, remoter, more attenuated tones as against the normal, medial ones. Besides (as an old musician, which is what I really am), I have an ear for quarter-tones. Finally—and this probably does most to make my books obscure—there is in me a distrust of dialectics, even of reasons. What a person already holds "true" or has not yet acknowledged as true; seems to me to depend mainly on his courage, on the relative strength of his courage (I seldom have the courage for what I really know).
The expressionAristocratic Radicalism, which you employ, is very good. It is, permit me to say, the cleverest thing I have yet read about myself.
How far this mode of thought has carried me already, how far it will carry me yet—I am almost afraid to imagine. But there are certain paths which do not allow one to go backward and so I go forward, because Imust.
That I may not neglect anything on my part that might facilitate your access to my cave—that is, my philosophy—my Leipzig publisher shall send you all my older booksen bloc. I recommend you especially to read the new prefaces to them (they have nearly all been republished); these prefaces, if read in order, will perhaps throw some light upon me, assuming that I am not obscurity in itself (obscure in myself) asobscurissimus obscurorum virorum. For that is quite possible.
Are you a musician? A work of mine for chorus and orchestra is just being published, a "Hymn to Life." This is intended to represent my music to posterity and one day to be sung "in my memory"; assuming that there is enough left of me for that. You see what posthumous thoughts I have. But a philosophy like mine is like a grave—it takes one from among the living.Bene vixit qui bene latuit—was inscribed on Descartes' tombstone. What an epitaph, to be sure!
I too hope we may meet some day,
Yours,NIETZSCHE.
N.B.—I am staying this winter at Nice. My summer address is Sils-Maria, Upper-Engadine, Switzerland—I have resigned my professorship at the University. I am three parts blind.
3. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, Dec. 15, 1887.
MY DEAR SIR,
The last words of your letter are those that have made most impression on me; those in which you tell me that your eyes are seriously affected. Have you consulted good oculists, the best? It alters one's whole psychological life if one cannot see well. You owe it to all who honour you to do everything possible for the preservation and improvement of your sight.
I have put off answering your letter because you announced the sending of a parcel of books, and I wished to thank you for them at the same time. But as the parcel has not yet arrived I will send you a few words to-day. I have your books back from the binder and have gone into them as deeply as I was able amid the stress of preparing lectures and all kinds of literary and political work.
December 17.
I am quite willing to be called a "good European," less so to be called a "missionary of culture." I have a horror of all missionary effort—because I have come across none but moralising missionaries—and I am afraid I do not altogether believe in what is called culture. Our culture as a whole cannot inspire enthusiasm, can it? and what would a missionary be withoutenthusiasm! In other words, I am more isolated than you think. All I meant by being German was that you write more for yourself, think more of yourself in writing, than for the general public; whereas most non—German writers have been obliged to force themselves into a certain discipline of style, which no doubt makes the latter clearer and more plastic, but necessarily deprives it of all profundity and compels the writer to keep to himself his most intimate and best individuality, the anonymous in him. I have thus been horrified at times to see how little of my inmost self is more than hinted at in my writings.
I am no connoisseur in music. The arts of which I have some notion are sculpture and painting; I have to thank them for my deepest artistic impressions. My ear is undeveloped. In my young days this was a great grief to me. I used to play a good deal and worked at thorough-bass for a few years, but nothing came of it. I can enjoy good music keenly, but still am one of the uninitiated.
I think I can trace in your works certain points of agreement with my own taste: your predilection for Beyle, for instance, and for Taine; but the latter I have not seen for seventeen years. I am not so enthusiastic about his work on the Revolution as you seem to be. He deplores and harangues an earthquake.
I used the expression "aristocratic radicalism" because it so exactly defines my own political convictions. I am a little hurt, however, at the offhand and impetuous pronouncements against such—phenomena as socialism and anarchism in your works. The anarchism of Prince Kropotkin, for instance, is no stupidity. The name, of course, is nothing. Your intellect, which is usually so dazzling, seems to me to fall a trifle short where truth is to be found in a nuance. Your views on the origin of the moral ideas interest me in the highest degree.
You share—to my delighted astonishment—a certain repugnance which I feel for Herbert Spencer. With us he passes for the god of philosophy. However, it is as a rule a distinct merit with these Englishmen that their not very high-soaring intellect shuns hypotheses, whereas hypothesis has destroyed the supremacy of German philosophy. Is not there a great deal that is hypothetical in your ideas of caste distinctions as the source of various moral concepts?
I know Rée whom you attack, have met him in Berlin; he was a quiet man, rather distinguished in his bearing, but a somewhat dry and limited intellect. He was living—according to his own account, as brother and sister—with a quite young and intelligent Russian lady, who published a year or two ago a book calledDer Kampf um Gott, but this gives no idea of her genuine gifts.
I am looking forward to receiving the books you promise me. I hope in future you will not lose sight of me.
Yours,GEORGE BRANDES.
4. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Nice, Jan. 8, 1888.
You should not object to the expression "missionary of culture." What better way is there of being one in our day than that of "missionising" one's disbelief in culture? To have understood that our European culture is a vast problem and by no means a solution—is not such a degree of introspection and self-conquest nowadays culture itself?
I am surprised my books have not yet reached you. I shall not omit to send a reminder to Leipzig. At Christmas time Messieurs the publishers are apt to lose their heads. Meanwhile may I be allowed to bring to your notice a daring curiosity over which no publisher has authority, anineditumof mine that is among the most personal things I can show. It is the fourth part of myZarathustra; its proper title, with regard to what precedes and follows it, should be—
Zarathustra's Temptation
An Interlude.
Perhaps this is my best answer to your question about my problem of pity. Besides which, there are excellent reasons for gaining admission to "me" by this particular secret door; provided that one crosses the threshold with your eyes and ears. Your essay on Zola reminded me once more, like everything I have met with of yours (the last was an essay in the Goethe Year-book), in the most agreeable way of your natural tendency towards every kind of psychological optics. When working out the most difficult mathematical problems of theâme moderneyou are as much in your element as a German scholar in such case is apt to be out of his. Or do you perhaps think more favourably of present-day Germans? It seems to me that they become year by year more clumsy and rectangularin rebus psychologicis(in direct contrast to the Parisians, with whom everything is becomingnuanceand mosaic), so that all events below the surface escape their notice. For example, myBeyond Good and Evil—what an awkward position it has put them in! Not one intelligent word has reached me about this book, let alone an intelligent sentiment. I do not believe even the most well-disposed of my readers has discovered that he has here to deal with the logical results of a perfectly definite philosophicalsensibility, and not with a medley of a hundred promiscuous paradoxes and heterodoxies. Nothing of the kind has been "experienced"; my readers do not bring to it a thousandth part of the passion and suffering that is needed. An "immoralist!" This does not suggest anything to them.
By the way, the Goncourts in one of their prefaces claim to have invented the phrasedocument humain. But for all that M. Taine may well be its real originator.
You are right in what you say about "haranguing an earthquake "; but such Quixotism is among the most honourable things on this earth.
With the greatest respect,
Yours,NIETZSCHE.
5. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, Jan. 11, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
Your publisher has apparently forgotten to send me your books, but I have to-day received your letter with thanks. I take the liberty of sending you herewith one of my books in proof (because unfortunately I have no other copy at hand), a collection of essays intended forexport, therefore not my best wares. They date from various times and are all too polite, too laudatory, too idealistic in tone. I never really say all I think in them. The paper on Ibsen is no doubt the best, but the translation of the verses, which I had done for me, is unfortunately wretched.
There is one Scandinavian writer whose works would interest you, if only they were translated:Sören Kierkegaard; he lived from 1813 to 1855, and is in my opinion one of the profoundest psychologists that have ever existed. A little book I wrote about him (translated, Leipzig, 1879) gives no adequate idea of his genius, as it is a sort of polemical pamphlet written to counteract his influence. But in a psychological respect it is, I think, the most subtle thing I have published.
The essay in the Goethe Year-book was unfortunately shortened by more than a third, as the space had been reserved for me. It is a good deal better in Danish.
If you happen to read Polish, I will send you a little book that I have published only in that language.
I see the newRivista Contemporaneaof Florence has printed a paper of mine on Danish literature. You must not read it. It is full of the most ridiculous mistakes. It is translated from the Russian, I must tell you. I had allowed it to be translated into Russian from my French text, but could not check this translation; now it appears in Italian from the Russian with fresh absurdities; amongst others in the names (on account of the Russian pronunciation), G for H throughout.
I am glad you find in me something serviceable to yourself. For the last four years I have been the most detested man in Scandinavia. Every day the papers rage against me, especially since my last long quarrel with Björnson, in which the moral German papers all took part against me. I dare say you know his absurd play,A Gauntlet, his propaganda for male virginity and his covenant with the spokeswomen of "the demand for equality in morals." Anything like it was certainly unheard of till now. In Sweden these insane women have formed great leagues in which they vow "only to marry virgin men." I suppose they get a guarantee with them, like watches, only the guarantee for the future is not likely to be forthcoming.
I have read the three books of yours that I know again and again. There are two or three bridges leading from my inner world to yours: Cæsarism, hatred of pedantry, a sense for Beyle, etc., but still most of it is strange to me. Our experiences appear to be so infinitely dissimilar. You are without doubt the most suggestive of all German writers.
Your German literature! I don't know what is the matter with it. I fancy all the brains must go into the General Staff or the administration. The whole life of Germany and all your institutions are spreading themost hideous uniformity, and even authorship is stifled by publishing.
Your obliged and respectful,GEORGE BRANDES.
6. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Nice, Feb. 19, 1888.
You have laid me under a most agreeable obligation with your contribution to the idea of "Modernity," for it happens that this winter I am circling round this paramount problem of values, very much from above and in the manner of a bird, and with the best intention of looking down upon the modern world with as unmodern an eye as possible. I admire—let me confess it—the tolerance of your judgment, as much as the moderation of your sentences. How you suffer these "little children" to come unto you! Even Heyse!
On my next visit to Germany I propose to take up the psychological problem of Kierkegaard and at the same time to renew acquaintance with your older literature. It will be of use to me in the best sense of the word—and will serve to restore good humour to my own severity and arrogance of judgment.
My publisher telegraphed to me yesterday that the books had gone to you. I will spare you and myself the story of why they were delayed. Now, my dear Sir, may you put a good face on a bad bargain, I mean on this Nietzsche literature.
I myself cherish the notion of having given the "new Germans" the richest, most actual and most independent books of any they possess; also of being in my own person a capital event in the crisis of the determination of values. But this may be an error; and, what is more, a piece of foolishness—I do not want to have to believe anything [of the sort] about myself.
One or two further remarks: they concern my firstlings (theJuveniliaandJuvenalia).
The pamphlet against Strauss, the wicked merrymaking of a "very free spirit" at the expense of one who thought himself such, led to a terrific scandal; I was already aProfessor Ordinariusat the time, therefore in spite of my twenty-seven years a kind of authority and something acknowledged. The most unbiassed view of this affair, in which almost every "notability" took part for or against me, and in which an insane quantity of paper was covered with printer's ink, is to be found in Karl Hillebrand'sZeiten, Völker und Menschen, second volume. The trouble was not that I had jeered at the senile bungling of an eminent critic, but that I had caught German tastein flagrantiin compromising tastelessness; for in spite of all party differences of religion and theology it had unanimously admired Strauss'sAlten und Neuen Glaubenas a masterpiece of freedom and subtlety of thought (even the style!). My pamphlet was the first onslaught on German culture (that "culture" which they imagined to have gained the victory over France). The word "Culture-Philistine," which I then invented, has remained in the language as a survival of the raging turmoil of that polemic.
The two papers on Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner appear to me to-day to contain self-confessions, above all promises to myself, rather than any real psychology of those two masters, who are at the same time profoundly related and profoundly antagonistic to me—(I was the first to distill a sort of unity out of them both; at present this superstition is much to the fore in German culture—that all Wagnerites are followers of Schopenhauer. It was otherwise when I was young. Then it was the last of the Hegelians who adhered to Wagner, and "Wagner and Hegel" was still the watchword of the 'fifties).
BetweenThoughts out of SeasonandHuman, all-too-Humanthere lies a crisis and a skin-casting. Physically too: I lived for years in extreme proximity to death. This was my great good fortune: I forgot myself, I outlived myself ... I have performed the same trick once again.
So now we have each presented gifts to the other: two travellers, it seems to me, who are glad to have met.
I remain,Yours most sincerely,NIETZSCHE.
7. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, March 7, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
I imagine you to be living in fine spring weather; up here we are buried in abominable snowdrifts and have been cut off from Europe for several days. To make things worse, I have this evening been talking to some hundred imbeciles, and everything looks grey and dreary around me, so to revive my spirits a little I will thank you for your letter of February 19 and your generous present of books.
As I was too busy to write to you at once, I sent you a volume on German Romanticism which I found on my shelves. I should be very sorry, however, that you should interpret my sending it otherwise than as a silent expression of thanks.
The book was written in 1873 and revised in 1886; but my German publisher has permitted himself a number of linguistic and other alterations, so that the first two pages, for instance, are hardly mine at all. Wherever he does not understand my meaning, he puts something else, and declares that what I have written is not German.
Moreover, the man promised to buy the rights of the old translation of my book, but from very foolish economy has not done so; the consequence is that the German courts have suppressed my book in two instances as pirated(!)—because I had included in it fragments of the old translation—while the real pirate is allowed to sell my works freely.
The probable result of this will be that I shall withdraw entirely from German literature.
I sent that volume because I had no other. But the first one on theémigrés, the fourth on the English and the fifth on the French romanticists are all far, far better; writtencon amore.
The title of the book,Moderne Geister, is fortuitous. I have written some twenty volumes. I wanted to put together for abroad a volume on personalities whose names would be familiar. That is how it came about. Some things in it have cost a good deal of study, such as the paper on Tegnér, which tells the truth about him for the first time. Ibsen will certainly interest you as a personality. Unfortunately as a man he does not stand on the same level that he reaches as a poet. Intellectually he owes much to Kierkegaard, and he is still strongly permeated by theology. Björnson in his latest phase has become just an ordinary lay-preacher.
For more than three years I have not published a book; I felt too unhappy. These three years have been among the hardest of my life, and I see no sign of the approach of better times. However, I am now going to set about the publication of the sixth volume of my work and another book besides. It will take a deal of time.
I was delighted with all the fresh books, turning them over and reading them.
The youthful books are of great value to me; they make it far easier to understand you; I am now leisurely ascending the steps that lead up to your intellect. WithZarathustraI began too precipitately. I prefer to advance upwards rather than to dive head first as though into a sea.
I knew Hillebrand's essay and read years ago some bitter attacks on the book about Strauss. I am grateful to you for the word culture-philistine; I had no idea it was yours. I take no offence at the criticism of Strauss, although I have feelings of piety for the old gentleman. Yet he was always the Tübingen collegian.
Of the other works I have at present only studiedThe Dawn of Dayat all closely. I believe I understand the book thoroughly, many of its ideas have also been mine, others are new to me or put into a new shape, but not on that accountstrangeto me.
One solitary remark, so as not to make this letter too long. I am delighted with the aphorism on the hazard of marriage (Aphorism 150). But why do you notdigdeeper here? You speak somewhere with a certain reverence of marriage, which by implying an emotional ideal has idealised emotion—here, however, you are more blunt and forcible. Why not for once say thefulltruth about it? I am of opinion that the institution of marriage, which may have been very useful in taming brutes, causes more misery to mankind than even the Church has done. Church, monarchy, marriage, property, these are to my mind four old venerable institutions which mankind will have to reformfrom the foundationsin order to be able to breathe freely. And of these marriage alone kills the individuality, paralyses liberty and is the embodiment of a paradox. But the shocking thing about it is that humanity is still too coarse to be able to shake it off. The most emancipated writers, so called, still speak of marriage with a devout and virtuous air which maddens me. And they gain their point, since it is impossible to say what one could put in its place for the mob. There is nothing else to be done but slowly to transform opinion. What do you think about it?
I should like very much to hear how it is with your eyes. I was glad to see how plain and clear your writing is.
Externally, I suppose, you lead a calm and peaceful life down there? Mine is a life of conflict which wears one out. In these realms I am even more hated now than I was seventeen years ago; this is not pleasant in itself, though it is gratifying in so far as it proves to me that I have not yet lost my vigour nor come to terms on any point with sovereign mediocrity.
Your attentive and grateful reader,GEORGE BRANDES.
8. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Nice, March 27, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
I should much have liked to thank you before this for so rich and thoughtful a letter: but my health has been troubling me, so that I have fallen badly into arrears with all good things. In my eyes, I may say in passing, I have a dynamometer for my general state; since my health in the main has once more improved, they have become stronger than I had ever believed possible—they have put to shame the prophecies of the very best German oculists. If Messieurs Gräfeet hoc genus omnehad turned out right, I should long ago have been blind. As it is, I have come to No. 3 spectacles—bad enough!—but I still see. I speak of this worry because you were sympathetic enough to inquire about it, and because during the last few weeks my eyes have been particularly weak and irritable.
I feel for you in the North, now so wintry and gloomy; how does one manage to keep one's soul erect there? I admire almost every man who does not lose faith in himself under a cloudy sky, to say nothing of his faith in "humanity," in "marriage," in "property," in the "State." ... In Petersburg I should be a nihilist: here I believe as a plant believes, in the sun. The sun of Nice—you cannot call that a prejudice. We have had it at the expense of all the rest of Europe. God, with the cynicism peculiar to him, lets it shine upon us idlers, "philosophers" and sharpers more brightly than upon the far worthier military heroes of the "Fatherland."
But then, with the instinct of the Northerner, you have chosen the strongest of all stimulants to help you to endure life in the North: war, the excitement of aggression, the Viking raid. I divine in your writings the practised soldier; and not only "mediocrity," but perhaps especially the more independent or individual characters of the Northern mind may be constantly challenging you to fight. How much of the "parson," how much theology is still left behind in all this idealism!... To me it would be still worse than a cloudy sky, to have to make oneself angry over thingswhich do not concern one.
So much for this time; it is little enough. YourGerman Romanticismhas set me thinking, how this whole movement actually only reached its goal as music (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Weber, Wagner, Brahms); as literature it remained a great promise. The French were more fortunate. I am afraid I am too much of a musician not to be a romanticist. Without music life to me would be a mistake.
With cordial and grateful regards I remain, dear Sir,Yours,NIETZSCHE.
9. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, April 3, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
You have called the postman the medium of ill-mannered invasions. That is very true as a rule, and should besat. sapientinot to trouble you. I am not an intruder by nature, so little in fact that I lead an almost isolated life, am indeed loth to write letters and, like all authors, loth to write at all.
Yesterday, however, when I had received your letter and taken up one of your books, I suddenly felt a sort of vexation at the idea that nobody here in Scandinavia knew anything about you, and I soon determined to make you known at a stroke. The newspaper cutting will tell you that (having just finished a series of lectures on Russia) I am announcing fresh lectures on your writings. For many years I have been obliged to repeat all my lectures, as the University cannot hold the audiences; that is not likely to be the case this time, as your name is so absolutely new, but the people who will come and get an impression of your works will not be of the dullest.
As I should very much like to have an idea of your appearance,I beg you to give me a portrait of yourself. I enclose my last photograph. I would also ask you to tell me quite briefly when and where you were born and in what years you published (or better, wrote) your works, as they are not dated. If you have any newspaper that contains these details, there will be no need to write. I am an unmethodical person and possess neither dictionaries of authors nor other books of reference in which your name might be found.
The youthful works—theThoughts out of Season—have been very useful to me. How young you were and enthusiastic, how frank and naïve I There is much in the maturer books that I do not yet understand; you appear to me often to hint at or generalise about entirely intimate, personal data, giving the reader a beautiful casket without the key. But most of it I understand. I was enchanted by the youthful work on Schopenhauer; although personally I owe little to Schopenhauer, it seemed to speak to me from the soul.
One or two pedantic corrections:Joyful Wisdom, p. 116. The words quoted are not Chamfort's last, they are to be found in hisCaractères et Anecdotes: dialogue between M. D. and M. L. in explanation of the sentence:Peu de personnes et pen de choses m'intéressent, mais rien ne m'intéresse moins que moi. The concluding words are: en vivant eten voyant les hommes, il faut que le cour se brise ou se bronze.
On p. 118 you speak of the elevation "in which Shakespeare places Cæsar." I find Shakespeare's Cæsar pitiable. An act of high treason. And this glorification of the miserable fellow whose only achievement was to plunge a knife into a great man!
Human, all-too-Human, II, p. 59. A holy lie. "It is the only holy lie that has become famous." No, Desdemona's last words are perhaps still more beautiful and just as famous, often quoted in Germany at the time when Jacobi was writing on Lessing. Am I not right?
These trifles are only to show you that I read you attentively. Of course, there are very different matters that I might discuss with you, but a letter is not the place for them.
If you read Danish, I should like to send you a handsomely got-up little book on Holberg, which will appear in a week. Let me know whether you understand our language. If you read Swedish, I call your attention to Sweden's only genius, August Strindberg. When you write about women you are very like him.
I hope you will have nothing but good to tell me of your eyes.
Yours sincerely,GEORGE BRANDES.
10. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Torino (Italia) ferma in posta, April 10, 1888.
But, my dear Sir, what a surprise is this!—Where have you found the courage to propose to speak in public of avir obscurissimus?... Do you imagine that I am known in the beloved Fatherland? They treat me there as if I were something singular and absurd, something that for the present need not betaken seriously.... Evidently they have an inkling that I do not take them seriously either: and how could I, nowadays, when "German intellect" has become acontradictio in adjecto!—My best thanks for the photograph. Unfortunately I have none to send in return: my sister, who is married and lives in South America, took with her the last portraits I possessed.
Enclosed is a littlevita, the first I have ever written.
As regards the dates of composition of the different books, they are to be found on the back of the cover ofBeyond Good and Evil. Perhaps you no longer have this cover.
The Birth of Tragedywas written between the summer of 1870 and the winter of 1871 (finished at Lugano, where I was living with the family of Field-Marshal Moltke).
TheThoughts out of Seasonbetween 1872 and the summer of 1875 (there were to have been thirteen; luckily my health said No!).
What you say about Schopenhauer as Educator gives me great pleasure. This little work serves me as a touchstone; he to whom it says nothing personal has probably nothing to do with me either. In reality it contains the whole plan according to which I have hitherto lived; it is a rigorous promise.
Human, all-too-Human, with its two continuations, summer of 1876-1879.The Dawn of Day, 1880.The Joyful Wisdom, January 1882.Zarathustra, 1883-1885 (each part in about ten days. Perfect state of "inspiration." All conceived in the course of rapid walks: absolute certainty, as though each sentence were shouted to one. While writing the book, the greatest physical elasticity and sense of power).
Beyond Good and Evil, summer of 1885 in the Upper Engadine and the following winter at Nice.
The Genealogydecided on, carried out and sent ready for press to the printer at Leipzig, all between July 10 and 30, 1887. (Of course there are alsophilologicaof mine, but they do not concern you and me.)
I am now making an experiment with Turin; I shall stay here till June 5 and then go to the Engadine. The weather so far is wintry, harsh and unpleasant. But the town superbly calm and favourable to my instincts. The finest pavement in the world.
Sincere greetings fromYours gratefully,NIETZSCHE.
A pity I understand neither Danish nor Swedish.
Vita.—I was born on October 15, 1844, on the battlefield of Lützen. The first name I heard was that of Gustavus Adolphus. My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Niëzky); it seems the type has been well maintained, in spite of three generations of German mothers. Abroad I am usually taken for a Pole; this very winter the visitors' list at Nice entered mecomme Polonais. I am told my head occurs in Matejko's pictures. My grandmother belonged to the Schiller-Goethe circles of Weimar; her brother was Herder's successor in the position of General Superintendent at Weimar. I had the good fortune to be a pupil of the venerable Pforta School, from which so many who have made a name in German literature have proceeded (Klopstock, Fichte, Schlegel, Ranke, etc., etc.). We had masters who would have (or have) done honour to any university. I studied at Bonn, afterwards at Leipzig; old Ritschl, then the first philologist in Germany, singled me out almost from the first. At twenty-two I was a contributor to theLitterarisches Centralblatt(Zarncke). The foundation of the Philological Society of Leipzig, which still exists, is due to me. In the winter of 1868-1869 the University of Basle offered me a professorship; I was as yet not even a Doctor. The University of Leipzig afterwards conferred the doctor's degree on me, in a very honourable way, without any examination, and even without a dissertation. From Easter 1869 to 1879 I was at Basle; I was obliged to give up my rights as a German subject, since as an officer (Horse Artillery) I should have been called up too frequently and my academic duties would have been interfered with. I am none the less master of two weapons, the sabre and the cannon—and perhaps of a third as well.... At Basle everything went very well, in spite of my youth; it sometimes happened, especially with candidates for the doctor's degree, that the examinee was older than the examiner.
I had the great good fortune to form a cordial friendship with Jakob Burkhardt, an unusual thing with that very hermit-like and secluded thinker. A still greater piece of good fortune was that from the earliest days of my Basle existence an indescribably close intimacy sprang up between me and Richard and Cosima Wagner, who were then living on their estate of Triebschen, near Lucerne, as though on an island, and were cut off from all former ties. For some years we had everything, great and small, in common, a confidence without bounds. (You will find printed in Volume VII of Wagner's complete works a "message" to me, referring toThe Birth of Tragedy.) As a result of these relations I came to know a large circle of persons (and "personesses"), in fact pretty nearly everything that grows between Paris and Petersburg. By about 1876 my health became worse. I then spent a winter at Sorrento, with my old friend, Baroness Meysenbug (Memoirs of an Idealist) and the sympathetic Dr. Rée. There was no improvement. I suffered from an extremely painful and persistent headache, which exhausted all my strength. This went on for a number of years, till it reached such a climax of habitual suffering, that at that time I had 200 days of torment in the year. The trouble must have been due entirely to local causes, there is no neuropathic basis for it of any sort. I have never had a symptom of mental disturbance; not even of fever, nor of fainting. My pulse was at that time as slow as that of the first Napoleon (= 60). My speciality was to endure extreme pain,cru, vert, with perfect clarity, for two or three consecutive days, accompanied by constant vomiting of bile. The report has been put about that I was in a madhouse (and indeed that I died there). Nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact my intellect only came to maturity during that terrible time: witness theDawn of Day, which I wrote in 1881 during a winter of incredible suffering at Genoa, away from doctors, friends or relations. This book serves me as a sort of "dynamometer": I composed it with a minimum of strength and health. From 1882 on I went forward again, very slowly, it is true: the crisis was past (my father died very young, just at the age at which I was myself so near to death). I have to use extreme care even to-day; certain conditions of a climatic and meteorological order are indispensable to me. It is not from choice but from necessity that I spend the summer in the Upper Engadine and the winter at Nice.... After all, my illness has been of the greatest use to me: it has released me, it has restored to me the courage to be myself.... And, indeed, in virtue of my instincts, I am a brave animal, a military one even. The long resistance has somewhat exasperated my pride. Am I a philosopher, do you ask?—But what does that matter!...
11. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, April 29, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
The first time I lectured on your works, the hall was not quite full, an audience of perhaps a hundred and fifty, since no one knew who and what you are. But as an important newspaper reported my first lecture, and as I have myself written an article on you, interest was roused, and next time the hall was full to bursting. Some three hundred people listened with the greatest attention to my exposition of your works. Nevertheless, I have not ventured to repeat the lectures, as has been my practice for many years, since the subject is hardly of a popular nature. I hope the result will be to get you some good readers in the North.
Your books now stand on one of my shelves, very handsomely bound. I should be very glad to possess everything you have published.
When, in your first letter, you offered me a musical work of yours, aHymn to Life, I declined the gift from modesty, being no great judge of music. Now I think I have deserved the work through my interest in it and should be much obliged if you would have it sent to me.
I believe I may sum up the impression of my audience in the feeling of a young painter, who said to me: "What makes this so interesting is that it has not to do with books,but with life." If any objection is taken to your ideas, it is that they are "too out-and-out."
It was unkind of you not to send me a photograph; I really only sent mine to put you under an obligation. It is so little trouble to sit to a photographer for a minute or two, and one knows a man far better when one has an idea of his appearance.
Yours very sincerely,GEORGE BRANDES.
12. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Turin, May 4, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
What you tell me gives me great pleasure and—let me confess it—still more surprise. Be sure I shall owe you for it: you know, hermits are not given to forgetting.
Meanwhile I hope my photograph will have reached you. It goes without saying that I took steps, not exactly to be photographed (for I am extremely distrustful of haphazard photographs), but to abstract a photograph from somebody who had one of me. Perhaps I have succeeded; I have not yet heard. If not, I shall avail myself of my next visit to Munich (this autumn probably) to be taken again.
The Hymn to Lifewill start on its journey to Copenhagen one of these days. We philosophers are never more grateful than when we are mistaken for artists. I am assured, moreover, by the best judges that the Hymn is thoroughly fit for performance, singable, and sure in its effect (—clear in form; this praise gave me the greatest pleasure). Mottl, the excellent court conductor at Carlsruhe (the conductor of the Bayreuth festival performances, you know), has given me hopes of a performance.
I have just heard from Italy that the point of view of my secondThought out of Seasonhas been very honourably mentioned in a survey of German literature contributed by the Viennese scholar, Dr. von Zackauer, at the invitation of theArchivio storicoof Florence. He concludes his paper with it.
These last weeks at Turin, where I shall stay till June 5, have turned out better than any I have known for years, above all more philosophic. Almost every day for one or two hours I have reached such a pitch of energy as to be able to view my whole conception from top to bottom; so that the immense multiplicity of problems lies spread out beneath me, as though in relief and clear in its outlines. This requires a maximum of strength, for which I had almost given up hope. It all hangs together; years ago it was already on the right course; one builds one's philosophy like a beaver, one is forced to and does not know it: but one has toseeall this, as I have now seen it, in order to believe it.
I am so relieved, so strengthened, in such good humour—I hang a little farcical tail on to the most serious things. What is the reason of all this? Have I not the goodnorth windsto thank for it, the north winds which do not always come from the Alps?—they come now and then even fromCopenhagen!
With greetings,Your gratefully devoted,NIETZSCHE.
13. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Turin, May 23, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
I should not like to leave Turin without telling you once more what a great share you have had in my firstsuccessfulspring. The history of my springs, for the last fifteen years at least, has been, I must tell you, a tale of horror, a fatality of decadence and infirmity. Places made no difference; it was as though no prescription, no diet, no climate could change the essentially depressing character of this time of year. But behold, Turin! And the first good news,yournews, my dear Sir, which proved to me that I am alive.... For I am sometimes apt to forget that I am alive. An accident, a question reminded me the other day that one of life's leading ideas is positively quenched in me, the idea of thefuture. No, wish, not the smallest cloudlet of a wish before me! A bare expanse! Why should not a day from my seventieth year be exactly like my day to-day? Have I lived too long in proximity to death to be able any longer to open my eyes to fair possibilities. —But certain it is that I now limit myself to thinking from day to day—that I settle to-day what is to be done to-morrow—and not for a single day beyond it! This may be irrational, unpractical, perhaps also unchristian—that preacher on the Mount forbade this very "taking thought for the morrow"—but it seems to me in the highest degree philosophical. I gained more respect for myself than I had before:—I understood that I had unlearnt how to wish, without even wanting to do so.
These weeks I have employed in "transvaluing values."—You understand this trope?—After all, the alchemist is the most deserving kind of man there is! I mean the man who makes of what is base and despised something valuable, even gold. He alone confers wealth, the others merely give change. My problem this time is rather a curious one: I have asked myself what hitherto has been best hated, feared, despised by mankind—and of that and nothing else I have made my "gold"....
If only I am not accused of false-coining! Or rather; that is what will happen.
Has my photograph reached you? My mother has shown me the great kindness of relieving me from the appearance of ungratefulness in such a special case. It is to be hoped the Leipzig publisher, E. W. Fritzsch, has also done his duty and sent off the Hymn.
In conclusion I confess to a feeling of curiosity. As it was denied me to listen at the crack of the door to learn something about myself, I should like to hear something in another way. Three words to characterise the subjects of your different lectures—how much should I learn from three words!
With cordial and devoted greetings,YourNIETZSCHE.
14. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
CopenhagenMay 23, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
For letter, portrait and music I send you my best thanks. The letter and the music were an unqualified pleasure, the portrait might have been better. It is a profile taken atNaumburg, characteristic in its attitude, but with too little expression. Youmustlook different from this; the writer ofZarathustramust have many more secrets written in his own face.
I concluded my lectures on Fr. Nietzsche before Whitsuntide. They ended, as the papers say, in applause "which took the form of an ovation." The ovation is yours almost entirely. I take the liberty of communicating it to you herewith in writing. For I can only claim the credit of reproducing, clearly and connectedly, and intelligibly to a Northern audience, what you had originated.
I also tried to indicate your relation to various contemporaries, to introduce my hearers into the workshop of your thought, to put forward my own favourite ideas, where they coincided with yours, to define the points on which I differed from you, and to give a psychological portrait of Nietzsche the author. Thus much I may say without exaggeration: your name is now very popular in all intelligent circles in Copenhagen, and all over Scandinavia it is at leastknown. You have nothing to thank me for; it has been apleasureto me to penetrate into the world of your thoughts. My lectures are not worth printing, as I do not regard pure philosophy as my special province and am unwilling to print anything dealing with a subject in which I do not feel sufficiently competent.
I am very glad you feel so invigorated physically and so well disposed mentally. Here, after a long winter, we have mild spring weather. We are rejoicing in the first green leaves and in a very well-arranged Northern exhibition that has been opened at Copenhagen. All the French artists of eminence (painters and sculptors) are also exhibiting here. Nevertheless, I am longing to get away, but have to stay.
But this cannot interest you. I forgot to tell you: if you do not know the Icelandic sagas, you must study them. You will find there a great deal to confirm your hypotheses and theories about the morality of a master race.
In one trifling detail you seem to have missed the mark.Gothichas certainly nothing to do withgoodorGod. It is connected with giessen, he who emits the seed, and means stallion, man.
On the other hand, our philologists here think your suggestion ofbonus—duonusis much to the point.
I hope that in future we shall never become entirely strangers to one another.
I remain your faithful reader and admirer,GEORGE BRANDES.
15. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES. (Post-card.)
Turin, May 27, 1888.
What eyes you have! You are right, the Nietzsche of the photograph is not yet the author ofZarathustra—he is a few years too young for that.
I am very grateful for the etymology ofGoth; it is simply godlike.
I presume you are reading another letter of mine to-day.
Your gratefully attachedN.
16. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Sils-Maria, Sept. 13, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
Herewith I do myself a pleasure—that of recalling myself to your memory, by sending you a wicked little book, but one that is none the less very seriously meant; the product of thegooddays of Turin. For I must tell you that since then there have beenevildays in Superfluity; such a decline in health, courage and "will to life," to talk Schopenhauer, that the little spring idyll scarcely seemed credible any longer. Fortunately I still possessed a document belonging to it, theCase of Wagner. A Musician's Problem. Spiteful tongues will prefer to call itThe Fall of Wagner.
Much as you may disclaim music (—the most importunate of all the Muses), and with however good reason, yet pray look at this piece of musician's psychology. You, my dear Mr. Cosmopolitan, are far too European in your ideas not to hear in it a hundred times more than my so-called countrymen, the "musical" Germans.
After all, in this case I am a connoisseurin rebus et personis—and, fortunately, enough of a musician by instinct to see that in this ultimate question of values, the problem is accessible andsolublethrough music.
In reality this pamphlet is almost written in French—I dare say it would be easier to translate it into French than into German.
Could you give me one or two more Russian or French addresses to which there would be somesensein sending the pamphlet?
In a month or two somethingphilosophicalmay be expected; under the very inoffensive title ofLeisure Hours of à PsychologistI am saying agreeable and disagreeable things to the world at large—including that intelligent nation, the Germans.
But all this is in the main nothing but recreation beside the main thing: the name of the latter isTransvaluation of all Values. Europe will have to discover a new Siberia, to which to consign the author of these experiments with values.
I hope this high-spirited letter will find you in one of your usualresolutemoods.
With kind remembrances,Yours,DR. NIETZSCHE.
Address till middle of November: Torino (Italia) ferma in posta.
17. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, Oct. 6, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
Your letter and valued gift found me in a raging fever of work. This accounts for my delay in answering.
The mere sight of your handwriting gave me pleasurable excitement.
It is sad news that you have had a bad summer. I was foolish enough to think that you had already got over all your physical troubles.
I have read the pamphlet with the greatest attention and much enjoyment. I am not so unmusical that I cannot enter into the fun of it. I am merely not an expert. A few days before receiving the little book I heard a very fine performance ofCarmen; what glorious music! However, at the risk of exciting your wrath I confess that Wagner'sTristan und Isoldemade an indelible impression on me. I once heard this opera in Berlin, in a despondent, altogether shattered state of mind, and I felt every note. I do not know whether the impression was so deep because I was so ill.
Do you know Bizet's widow? You ought to send her the pamphlet. She would like it. She is the sweetest, most charming of women, with a nervousticthat is curiously becoming, but perfectly genuine, perfectly sincere and full of fire. Only she has married again (an excellent man, a barrister named Straus, of Paris). I believe she knows some German. I could get you her address, if it does not put you against her that she has not remained true to her god—any more than the Virgin Mary, Mozart's widow or Marie Louise.
Bizet's child is ideally beautiful and charming.—But I am gossiping.
I have given a copy of the book to the greatest of Swedish writers, August Strindberg, whom I have entirely won over to you. He is a true genius, only a trifle mad like most geniuses (and non-geniuses). The other copy I shall also place with care.
Paris I am not well acquainted with now. But send a copy to the following address: Madame la Princesse Anna Dmitrievna Ténicheff, Quai Anglais 20, Petersburg. This lady is a friend of mine; she is also acquainted with the musical world of Petersburg and will make you known there. I have asked her before now to buy your works, but they were all forbidden in Russia, evenHuman, all-too-Human.
It would also be as well to send a copy to Prince Urussov (who is mentioned in Turgeniev's letters). He is greatly interested in everything German, and is a man of rich gifts, an intellectual gourmet. I do not remember his address for the moment, but can find it out.
I am glad that in spite of all bodily ills you are working so vigorously and keenly. I am looking forward to all the things you promise me.
It would give me great pleasure to be read by you, but unfortunately you do not understand my language. I have produced an enormous amount this summer. I have written two long new books (of twenty-four and twenty-eight sheets),Impressions of Poland and Impressions of Russia, besides entirely rewriting one of my oldest books,Æsthetic Studies, for a new edition and correcting the proofs of all three books myself. In another week or so I shall have finished this work; then I give a series of lectures, writing at the same time another series in French, and leave for Russia in the depth of winter to revive there.
That is the plan I propose for my winter campaign. May it not be a Russian campaign in the bad sense.
I hope you will continue your friendly interest in me.
I remain,Your faithfully devoted,GEORGE BRANDES.
18. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Turin, Oct. 20, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
Once more your letter brought me a pleasant wind from the north; it is in fact so far the only letter that puts a "good face," or any face at all on my attack on Wagner. For people do not write to me. I have irreparably offended even my nearest and dearest. There is, for instance, my old friend, Baron Seydlitz of Munich, who unfortunately happens to be President of the Munich Wagner Society; my still older friend,JustizrathKrug of Cologne, president of the local Wagner Society; my brother-in-law, Dr. Bernhard Förster in South America, the not unknown Anti—Semite, one of the keenest contributors to theBayreuther Blätter—and my respected friend, Malwida von Meysenbug, the authoress ofMemoirs of an Idealist, who continues to confuse Wagner with Michel Angelo....
On the other side I have been given to understand that I must be on my guard against the female Wagnerite: in certain cases she is said to be without scruple. Perhaps Bayreuth will defend itself in the German Imperial manner, by the prohibition of my writings—as "dangerous to public morals"; for here the Emperor is a party to the case.
My dictum, "we all know the inæsthetic concept of the ChristianJunker," might even be interpreted aslèse-majesté.
Your intervention on behalf of Bizet's widow gave me great pleasure. Please let me have her address; also that of prince Urussov. A copy has been sent to your friend, the Princess Dmitrievna Ténicheff. When my next book is published, which will be before very long (the title is nowThe Twilight of the Idols. Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer), I should much like to send a copy to the Swede you introduce to me in such laudatory terms. But I do not know where he lives. This book is my philosophyin nuce—radical to the point of criminality....
As to the effect ofTristan, I, too, could tell strange tales. A regular dose of mental anguish seems to me a splendid tonic before a Wagnerian repast. TheReichsgerichtsrathDr. Wiener of Leipzig gave me to understand that a Carlsbad cure was also a good thing....
Ah, how industrious you are! And idiot that I am, not to understand Danish! I am quite willing to take your word for it that one can "revive" in Russia better than elsewhere; I count any Russian book, above all Dostoievsky (translated into French, for Heaven's sake not German!!) among my greatest sources of relief.
Cordially and, with good reason, gratefully,Yours,NIETZSCHE.
19. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen,Nov. 16, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have waited in vain for an answer from Paris to learn the address of Madame Bizet. On the other hand, I now have the address of Prince Urussov. He lives in Petersburg, Sergievskaia 79.
My three books are now out. I have begun my lectures here.
Curious it is how something in your letter and in your book about Dostoievsky coincides with my own impressions of him. I have mentioned you, too, in my work on Russia, when dealing with Dostoievsky. He is a great poet, but an abominable creature, quite Christian in his emotions and at the same time quitesadique. His whole morality is what you have baptised slave-morality.
The mad Swede's name is August Strindberg; he lives here. His address is Holte, near Copenhagen. He is particularly fond of you, because he thinks he finds in you his own hatred of women. On this account he calls you "modern" (irony of fate). On reading the newspaper reports of my spring lectures, he said: "It is an astonishing thing about this Nietzsche; much of what he says is just what I might have written." His drama,Père, has appeared in French with a preface by Zola.
I feel mournful whenever I think of Germany. What a development is now going on there! How sad to think that to all appearance one will never in one's lifetime be a historical witness of the smallest good thing.
What a pity that so learned a philologist as you should not understand Danish. I am doing all I can to prevent my books on Poland and Russia being translated, so that I may not be expelled, or at least refused the right of speaking when I next go there.
Hoping that these lines will find you still at Turin or will be forwarded to you, I am,
Yours very sincerely,GEORGE BRANDES.
20. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Torino, via Carlo Alberto, 6, III.
Nov. 20, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
Forgive me for answering at once. Curious things are now happening in my life, things that are without precedent. First the day before yesterday; now again. Ah, if you knew what I had just written when your letter paid me its visit.
With a cynicism that will become famous in the world's history, I have now related myself. The book is calledEcce Homo, and is an attack on the Crucified without the slightest reservation; it ends in thunders and lightnings against everything that is Christian or infected with Christianity, till one is blinded and deafened. I am in fact the first psychologist of Christianity and, as an old artilleryman, can bring heavy guns into action, the existence of which no opponent of Christianity has even suspected. The whole is the prelude to theTransvaluation of all Values, the work that lies ready before me: I swear to you that in two years we shall have the whole world in convulsions. I am a fate.
Guess who come off worst inEcce Homo? Messieurs the Germans! I have told them terrible things.... The Germans, for instance, have it on their conscience that they deprived the lastgreatepoch of history, the Renaissance, of its meaning—at a moment when the Christian values, thedécadencevalues, were worsted, when they were conquered in the instincts even of the highest ranks of the clergy by the opposite instincts, the instincts of life. Toattackthe Church—that meant to re-establish Christianity. (Cesare Borgia as pope—that would have been the meaning of the Renaissance, its proper symbol.)
You must not be angry either, to find yourself brought forward at a critical passage in the book—I wrote it just now—where I stigmatise the conduct of my German friends towards me, their absolute leaving me in the lurch as regards both fame and philosophy. Then you suddenly appear, surrounded by a halo....
I believe implicitly what you say about Dostoievsky; I esteem him, on the other hand, as the most valuable psychological material I know—I am grateful to him in an extraordinary way, however antagonistic he may be to my deepest instincts. Much the same as my relation to Pascal, whom I almost love, since he has taught me such an infinite amount; the onlylogicalChristian.
The day before yesterday I read, with delight and with a feeling of being thoroughly at home, Les mariés, by Herr August Strindberg. My sincerest admiration, which is only prejudiced by the feeling that I am admiring myself a little at the same time.
Turin is still my residence.
YourNIETZSCHE, now a monster.
Where may I send you theTwilight of the Idols? If you will be at Copenhagen another fortnight, no answer is necessary.
21. BRANDES TO NIETZSCHE.
Copenhagen, Nov. 23, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
Your letter found me to-day in full fever of work; I am lecturing here on Goethe, repeat each lecture twice and yet people wait in line for three quarters of an hour in the square before the University to get standing-room. It amuses me to study the greatest of the great before so many. I must stay here till the end of the year.
But on the other side there is the unfortunate circumstance that—as I am informed—one of my old books, lately translated into Russian, has been condemned in Russia to be publiclyburntas "irreligious."
I already had to fear expulsion on account of my two last works on Poland and Russia; now I must try to set in motion all the influence I can command, in order to obtain permission to lecture in Russia this winter. To make matters worse, nearly all letters to and from me are now confiscated. There is great anxiety since the disaster at Borki. It was just the same shortly after the famous attempts. Every letter was snapped up.
It gives me lively satisfaction to see that you have again got through so much. Believe me, I spread your propaganda wherever I can. So late as last week I earnestly recommended Henrik Ibsen to study your works. With him too you have some kinship, even if it is a very distant kinship. Great and strong and unamiable, but yetworthyof love, is this singular person. Strindberg will be glad to hear of your appreciation. I do not know the French translation you mention; but they say here that all the best things inGiftas(Mariés) have been left out, especially the witty polemic against Ibsen. But read his dramaPère; there is a great scene in it. I am sure he would gladly send it you. But I see him so seldom; he is so shy on account of an extremely unhappy marriage. Imagine it, he abhors his wifeintellectuallyand cannot get away from herphysically. He is a monogamous misogynist!
It seems curious to me that the polemical trait is still so strong in you. In my early days I was passionately polemical; now I can only expound; silence is my only weapon of offence. I should as soon think of attacking Christianity as of writing a pamphlet against werewolves, I mean against the belief in werewolves.
But I see we understand one another. I toolovePascal. But even as a young man I wasforthe Jesuits against Pascal (in theProvinciales). The worldly-wise, they were right, of course; he did not understand them; but they understood him and—what a master-stroke of impudence and sagacity!—they themselves published hisProvincialeswith notes. The best edition is that of the Jesuits.
Luther against the Pope, there we have the same collision. Victor Hugo in the preface to theFeuilles d'Automnehas this fine saying:On convoque la diète de Worms mais on peint la chapelle Sixtine. Il y a Luther, mais il y a Michel-Ange ... et remarquons en passant que Luther est dans les vieilleries qui croulent autour de nous et que Michel-Ange n'y est pas.
Study the face of Dostoievsky: half a Russian peasant's face, half a criminal physiognomy, flat nose, little piercing eyes under lids quivering with nervousness, this lofty and well-formed forehead, this expressive mouth that speaks of torments innumerable, of abysmal melancholy, of unhealthy appetites, of infinite pity, passionate envy! An epileptic genius, whose exterior alone speaks of the stream of gentleness that filled his spirit, of the wave of acuteness almost amounting to madness that mounted to his head, and finally of the ambition, the immense effort, and of the ill-will that results from pettiness of soul.
His heroes are not only poor and pitiable creatures, but simple-minded sensitive ones, noble strumpets, often victims of hallucination, gifted epileptics, enthusiastic candidates for martyrdom—just those types which we should suspect in the apostles and disciples of the early days of Christianity.
Certainly nothing could be farther removed from the Renaissance.
I am excited to know how I can come into your book.