No More Learning

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DAVID STRAUSS. 83
severe, and stoutly equipped scholar, with whom
we sympathised as wholly as with all those in
Germany who seek to serve truth with earnestness
and energy, and to rule within the limits of their
powers. He, however, who is now publicly famous
as David Strauss, is another person. The theo-
logians may be to blame for this metamorphosis;
but, at any rate, his present toying with the mask
of genius inspires us with as much hatred and
scorn as his former earnestness commanded respect
and sympathy. When, for instance, he tells us,
"it would also argue ingratitude towards my genius
if I were not to rejoice that to the faculty of an
incisive, analytical criticism was added the innocent
pleasure in artistic production," it may astonish
him to hear that, in spite of this self-praise, there
are still men who maintain exactly the reverse, and
who say, not only that he has never possessed the
gift of artistic production, but that the "innocent"
pleasure he mentions is of all things the least
innocent, seeing that it succeeded in gradually
undermining and ultimately destroying a nature
as strongly and deeply scholarly and critical as
Strauss's—in fact, the real Straussian genius. In
a moment of unlimited frankness, Strauss himself
indeed adds: "Merck was always in my thoughts,
calling out, 'Don't produce such child's play
again; others can do that too! '" That was the
voice of the real Straussian genius, which also
asked him what the worth of his newest, innocent,
and lightly equipped modern Philistine's testament
was. Others can do that too! And many could
do it better. And even they who could have done


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84 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
it best, i. e. those thinkers who are more widely
endowed than Strauss, could still only have made
nonsense of it.
I take it that you are now beginning to under-
stand the value I set on Strauss the Writer. You
are beginning to realise that I regard him as a
mummer who would parade as an artless genius
and classical writer. When Lichtenberg said, "A
simple manner of writing is to be recommended,
if only in view of the fact that no honest man
trims and twists his expressions," he was very far
from wishing to imply that a simple style is a proof
of literary integrity. I, for my part, only wish that
Strauss the Writer had been more upright, for then
he would have written more becomingly and have
been less famous. Or, if he would be a mummer
at all costs, how much more would he not have
pleased me if he had been a better mummer—one
more able to ape the guileless genius and classical
author! For it yet remains to be said that Strauss
was not only an inferior actor but a very worthless
stylist as well.
XI.
Of course, the blame attaching to Strauss for
being a bad writer is greatly mitigated by the fact
that it is extremely difficult in Germany to become
even a passable or moderately good writer, and
that it is more the exception than not, to be a
really good one. In this respect the natural soil is
wanting, as are also artistic values and the proper
method of treating and cultivating oratory. This


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DAVID STRAUSS. 85
latter accomplishment, as the various branches of
it, i. e. drawing-room, ecclesiastical and Parlia-
mentary parlance, show, has not yet reached the
level of a national style; indeed, it has not yet
shown even a tendency to attain to a style at all,
and all forms of language in Germany do not yet
seem to have passed a certain experimental stage.
In view of these facts, the writer of to-day, to
some extent, lacks an authoritative standard, and
he is in some measure excused if, in the matter of
language, he attempts to go ahead of his own
accord. As to the probable result which the
present dilapidated condition of the German
language will bring about, Schopenhauer, perhaps,
has spoken most forcibly. "If the existing state of
affairs continues," he says, "in the year 1900
German classics will cease to be understood, for
the simple reason that no other language will be
known, save the trumpery jargon of the noble
present, the chief characteristic of which is im-
potence. " And, in truth, if one turn to the latest
periodicals, one will find German philologists and
grammarians already giving expression to the
view that our classics can no longer serve us as
examples of style, owing to the fact that they
constantly use words, modes of speech, and syntactic
arrangements which are fast dropping out of
currency. Hence the need of collecting specimens
of the finest prose that has been produced by our
best modern writers, and of offering them as
examples to be followed, after the style of Sander's
pocket dictionary of bad language. In this book,
that repulsive monster of style Gutzkow appears as


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86 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
a classic, and, according to its injunctions, we seem
to be called upon to accustom ourselves to quite a
new and wondrous crowd of classical authors,
among which the first, or one of the first, is David
Strauss: he whom we cannot describe more aptly
than we have already—that is to say, as a worthless
stylist. Now, the notion which the Culture-
Philistine has of a classic and standard author
speaks eloquently for his pseudo-culture—he who
only shows his strength by opposing a really
artistic and severe style, and who, thanks to the
persistence of his opposition, finally arrives at
a certain uniformity of expression, which again
almost appears to possess unity of genuine style.
In view, therefore, of the right which is granted to
every one to experiment with the language, how is
it possible at all for individual authors to discover
a generally agreeable tone? What is so generally
interesting in them? In the first place, a negative
quality—the total lack of offensiveness: but
every really productive thing is offensive. The
greater part of a German's daily reading matter is
undoubtedly sought either in the pages of news-
papers, periodicals, or reviews. The language of
these journals gradually stamps itself on his brain,
by means of its steady drip, drip, drip of similar
phrases and similar words. And, since he generally
devotes to reading those hours of the day during
which his exhausted brain is in any case not
inclined to offer resistance, his ear for his native
tongue so slowly but surely accustoms itself to this
everyday German that it ultimately cannot endure
its absence without pain. But the manufacturers


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DAVID STRAUSS. 87
of these newspapers are, by virtue of their trade,
most thoroughly inured to the effluvia of this
journalistic jargon; they have literally lost all
taste, and their palate is rather gratified than not
by the most corrupt and arbitrary innovations.
Hence the tutti unisono with which, despite the
general lethargy and sickliness, every fresh
solecism is greeted; it is with such impudent
corruptions of the language that her hirelings are
avenged against her for the incredible boredom
she imposes ever more and more upon them. I
remember having read " an appeal to the German
nation," by Berthold Auerbach, in which every
sentence was un-German, distorted and false, and
which, as a whole, resembled a soulless mosaic of
words cemented together with international syntax.
As to the disgracefully slipshod German with
which Edward Devrient solemnised the death of
Mendelssohn, I do not even wish to do more than
refer to it. A grammatical error—and this is the
most extraordinary feature of the case—does not
therefore seem an offence in any sense to our
Philistine, but a most delightful restorative in the
barren wilderness of everyday German. He still,
however, considers all really productive things to
be offensive. The wholly bombastic, distorted,
and threadbare syntax of the modern standard
author—yea, even his ludicrous neologisms—are
not only tolerated, but placed to his credit as the
spicy element in his works. But woe to the stylist
with character, who seeks as earnestly and perse-
veringly to avoid the trite phrases of everyday
parlance, as the "yester-night monster blooms of


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88 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
modern ink - flingers," as Schopenhauer says!
When platitudes, hackneyed, feeble, and vulgar
phrases are the rule, and the bad and the corrupt
become refreshing exceptions, then all that is
strong, distinguished, and beautiful perforce acquires
an evil odour. From which it follows that, in
Germany, the well-known experience which befell
the normally built traveller in the land of hunch-
backs is constantly being repeated. It will be
remembered that he was so shamefully insulted
there, owing to his quaint figure and lack of dorsal
convexity, that a priest at last had to harangue the
people on his behalf as follows: "My brethren,
rather pity this poor stranger, and present thank-
offerings unto the gods, that ye are blessed with
such attractive gibbosities. "
If any one attempted to compose a positive
grammar out of the international German style of
to-day, and wished to trace the unwritten and
unspoken laws followed by every one, he would
get the most extraordinary notions of style
and rhetoric. He would meet with laws which
are probably nothing more than reminiscences
of bygone schooldays, vestiges of impositions
for Latin prose, and results perhaps of choice
readings from French novelists, over whose
incredible crudeness every decently educated
Frenchman would have the right to laugh. But
no conscientious native of Germany seems to have
given a thought to these extraordinary notions
under the yoke of which almost every German
lives and writes.
As an example of what I say, we may find an


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DAVID STRAUSS. 89
injunction to the effect that a metaphor or a simile
must be introduced from time to time, and that
it must be new; but, since to the mind of the
shallow-pated writer newness and modernity are
identical, he proceeds forthwith to rack his brain
for metaphors in the technical vocabularies of the
railway, the telegraph, the steamship, and the
Stock Exchange, and is proudly convinced that such
metaphors must be new because they are modern.
In Strauss's confession-book we find liberal tribute
paid to modern metaphor. He treats us to a simile,
covering a page and a half, drawn from modern
road-improvement work; a few pages farther back
he likens the world to a machine, with its wheels,
stampers, hammers, and "soothing oil" (p. 432);
"A repast that begins with champagne" (p. 384);
"Kant is a cold-water cure" (p. 309); "The
Swiss constitution is to that of England as a
watermill is to a steam-engine, as a waltz-tune
or a song to a fugue or symphony" (p. 301);
"In every appeal, the sequence of procedure must
be observed. Now the mean tribunal between the
individual and humanity is the nation" (p. 165)
"If we would know whether there be still any life
in an organism which appears dead to us, we are
wont to test it by a powerful, even painful stimulus,
as for example a stab" (p. 161) ; "The religious
domain in the human soul resembles the domain
of the Red Indian in America" (p. 160)
"Virtuosos in piety, in convents" (p. 107); "And
place the sum-total of the foregoing in round
numbers under the account" (p. 205); "Darwin's
theory resembles a railway track that is just


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OO THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
marked out . . . where the flags are fluttering
joyfully in the breeze. " In this really highly
modern way, Strauss has met the Philistine
injunction to the effect that a new simile must be
introduced from time to time.
Another rhetorical rule is also very widespread,
namely, that didactic passages should be composed
in long periods, and should be drawn out into
lengthy abstractions, while all persuasive passages
should consist of short sentences followed by
striking contrasts. On page 154 in Strauss's book
we find a standard example of the didactic and
scholarly style—a passage blown out after the
genuine Schleiermacher manner, and made to
stumble along at a true tortoise pace: "The
reason why, in the earlier stages of religion, there
appear many instead of this single Whereon, a
plurality of gods instead of the one, is explained
in this deduction of religion, from the fact that the
various forces of nature, or relations of life, which
inspire man with the sentiment of unqualified
dependence, still act upon him in the commence-
ment with the full force of their distinctive
characteristics; that he has not as yet become
conscious how, in regard to his unmitigated
dependence upon them, there is no distinction
between them, and that therefore the Whereon
of this dependence, or the Being to which it
conducts in the last instance, can only be one. "
On pages 7 and 8 we find an example of the
other kind of style, that of the short sentences
containing that affected liveliness which so excited
certain readers that they cannot mention Strauss


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DAVID STRAUSS. 91
any more without coupling his name with Lessing's.
"I am well aware that what I propose to delineate
in the following pages is known to multitudes as
well as to myself, to some even much better.
A few have already spoken out on the subject
.
Am I therefore to keep silence? I think not.
For do we not all supply each other's deficiencies?
If another is better informed as regards some
things, I may perhaps be so as regards others; while
yet others are known and viewed by me in a dif-
ferent light. Out with it, then! let my colours be
displayed 'that it may be seen whether they are
genuine or not. '"
It is true that Strauss's style generally maintains
a happy medium between this sort of merry quick-
march and the other funereal and indolent pace;
but between two vices one does not invariably find
a virtue; more often rather only weakness, helpless
paralysis, and impotence. As a matter of fact, I
was very disappointed when I glanced through
Strauss's book in search of fine and witty passages;
for, not having found anything praiseworthy in the
Confessor, I had actually set out with the express
purpose of meeting here and there with at least
some opportunities of praising Strauss the Writer.
I sought and sought, but my purpose remained
unfulfilled. Meanwhile, however, another duty
seemed to press itself strongly on my mind—that
of enumerating the solecisms, the strained meta-
phors, the obscure abbreviations, the instances of
bad taste, and the distortions which I encountered;
and these were of such a nature that I dare do no
more than select a few examples of them from


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92 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
among a collection which is too bulky to be given
in full. By means of these examples I may
succeed in showing what it is that inspires, in
the hearts of modern Germans, such faith in
this great and seductive stylist Strauss: I refer
to his eccentricities of expression, which, in the
barren waste and dryness of his whole book,
jump out at one, not perhaps as pleasant but as
painfully stimulating, surprises. When perusing
such passages, we are at least assured, to use a
Straussian metaphor, that we are not quite dead,
but still respond to the test of a stab. For the
rest of the book is entirely lacking in offensiveness
—that quality which alone, as we have seen,
is productive, and which our classical author
has himself reckoned among the positive virtues.
When the educated masses meet with exaggerated
dulness and dryness, when they are in the pre-
sence of really vapid commonplaces, they now
seem to believe that such things are the signs
of health; and in this respect the words of the
author of the dialogus de oratoribus are very much
to the point: "Mam ipsam quam jactant sanitatem
non firmitate sed jejunio consequunlur. " That is
why they so unanimously hate every firmitas,
because it bears testimony to a kind of health
quite different from theirs; hence their one wish
to throw suspicion upon all austerity and terse-
ness, upon all fiery and energetic movement, and
upon every full and delicate play of muscles.
They have conspired to twist nature and the
names of things completely round, and for the
future to speak of health only there where we see


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DAVID STRAUSS. 93
weakness, and to speak of illness and excitability
where for our part we see genuine vigour. From
which it follows that David Strauss is to them a
classical author.
If only this dulness were of a severely logical
order! but simplicity and austerity in thought
are precisely what these weaklings have lost, and
in their hands even our language has become
illogically tangled. As a proof of this, let any
one try to translate Strauss's style into Latin:
in the case of Kant, be it remembered, this is
possible, while with Schopenhauer it even becomes
an agreeable exercise. The reason why this test
fails with Strauss's German is not owing to the
fact that it is more Teutonic than theirs, but
because his is distorted and illogical, whereas theirs
is lofty and simple. Moreover, he who knows how
the ancients exerted themselves in order to learn
to write and speak correctly, and how the moderns
omit to do so, must feel, as Schopenhauer says,
a positive relief when he can turn from a German
book like the one under our notice, to dive into
those other works, those ancient works which seem
to him still to be written in a new language. "For
in these books," says Schopenhauer, "I find a
regular and fixed language which, throughout,
faithfully follows the laws of grammar and ortho-
graphy, so that I can give up my thoughts com-
pletely to their matter; whereas in German I am
constantly being disturbed by the author's im-
pudence and his continual attempts to establish
his own orthographical freaks and absurd ideas—
the swaggering foolery of which disgusts me. It is


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94 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
really a painful sight to see a fine old language,
possessed of classical literature, being botched by
asses and ignoramuses! "
Thus Schopenhauer's holy anger cries out to
us, and you cannot say that you have not been
warned. He who turns a deaf ear to such warnings,
and who absolutely refuses to relinquish his faith
in Strauss the classical author, can only be given
this last word of advice—to imitate his hero. In
any case, try it at your own risk; but you will
repent it, not only in your style but in your head,
that it may be fulfilled which was spoken by the
Indian prophet, saying, "He who gnaweth a
cow's horn gnaweth in vain and shorteneth his
life; for he grindeth away his teeth, yet his belly
is empty. "
XII.
By way of concluding, we shall proceed to give
our classical prose-writer the promised examples of
his style which we have collected. Schopenhauer
would probably have classed the whole lot as " new
documents serving to swell the trumpery jargon of
the present day "; for David Strauss may be com-
forted to hear (if what follows can be regarded as
a comfort at all) that everybody now writes as he
does; some, of course, worse, and that among the
blind the one-eyed is king. Indeed, we allow
him too much when we grant him one eye; but
we do this willingly, because Strauss does not
write so badly as the most infamous of all cor-
rupters of German—the Hegelians and their


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DAVID STRAUSS. 95
crippled offspring. Strauss at least wishes to
extricate himself from the mire, and he is already
partly out of it; still, he is very far from being on
dry land, and he still shows signs of having stam-
mered Hegel's prose in youth. In those days,
possibly, something was sprained in him, some
muscle must have been overstrained. His ear,
perhaps, like that of a boy brought up amid the
beating of drums, grew dull, and became incapable
of detecting those artistically subtle and yet mighty
laws of sound, under the guidance of which every
writer is content to remain who has been strictly
trained in the study of good models. But in this
way, as a stylist, he has lost his most valuable
possessions, and stands condemned to remain re-
clining, his life long, on the dangerous and barren
shifting sand of newspaper style—that is, if he do
not wish to fall back into the Hegelian mire.
Nevertheless, he has succeeded in making himself
famous for a couple of hours in our time, and
perhaps in another couple of hours people will
remember that he was once famous; then, how-
ever, night will come, and with her oblivion; and
already at this moment, while we are entering his
sins against style in the black book, the sable
mantle of twilight is falling upon his fame. For
he who has sinned against the German language
has desecrated the mystery of all our Germanity.
Throughout all the confusion and the changes of
races and of customs, the German language alone,
as though possessed of some supernatural charm,
has saved herself; and with her own salvation she
has wrought that of the spirit of Germany. She


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96 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
alone holds the warrant for this spirit in future
ages, provided she be not destroyed at the sacri-
legious hands of the modern world. "But Di
meliora! Avaunt, ye pachyderms, avaunt! This
is the German language, by means of which men
express themselves, and in which great poets have
sung and great thinkers have written. Hands off! "*
******
To put it in plain words, what we have seen
have been feet of clay, and what appeared to be of
the colour of healthy flesh was only applied paint.
Of course, Culture-Philistinism in Germany will be
very angry when it hears its one living God referred
to as a series of painted idols. He, however, who
dares to overthrow its idols will not shrink, despite
all indignation, from telling it to its face that it has
forgotten how to distinguish between the quick and
the dead, the genuine and the counterfeit, the
original and the imitation, between a God and a
host of idols; that it has completely lost the
healthy and manly instinct for what is real and
right. It alone deserves to be destroyed; and
already the manifestations of its power are sink-
ing; already are its purple honours falling from it;
but when the purple falls, its royal wearer soon
follows.
* Translator's note. —Nietzsche here proceeds to quote
those passages he has culled from The Old and the New
Faith with which he undertakes to substantiate all he has
said relative to Strauss's style; as, however, these passages,
with his comments upon them, lose most of their point when
rendered into English, it was thought best to omit them
altogether.


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DAVID STRAUSS. 97
Here I come to the end of my confession of
faith. This is the confession of an individual;
and what can such an one do against a whole
world, even supposing his voice were heard every-
where! In order for the last time to use a precious
Straussism, his judgment only possesses "that
amount of subjective truth which is compatible with
a complete lack of objective demonstration "—is not
that so, my dear friends? Meanwhile, be of good
cheer. For the time being let the matter rest at
this " amount which is compatible with a complete
lack"! For the time being! That is to say, for
as long as that is held to be out of season which
in reality is always in season, and is now more than
ever pressing; I refer to . . . speaking the truth*
* Translator's note. — All quotations from The Old
Faith and the New which appear in the above translation
have either been taken bodily out of Mathilde Blind's trans-
lation (Asher and Co. , 1873), or are adaptations from that
translation.


## p. 98 (#196) #############################################



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RICHARD WAGNER IN
BAYREUTH.


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RICHARD WAGNER IN
BAYREUTH.
i.
FOR an event to be great, two things must be
united—the lofty sentiment of those who accomplish
it, and the lofty sentiment of those who witness it.
No event is great in itself, even though it be the
disappearance of whole constellations, the destruc-
tion of several nations, the establishment of vast
empires, or the prosecution of wars at the cost
of enormous forces: over things of this sort the
breath of history blows as if they were flocks of
wool. But it often happens, too, that a man of
might strikes a blow which falls without effect
upon a stubborn stone; a short, sharp report is
heard, and all is over. History is able to record
little or nothing of such abortive efforts. Hence
the anxiety which every one must feel who,
observing the approach of an event, wonders
whether those about to witness it will be worthy
of it. This reciprocity between an act and its
reception is always taken into account when any-


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102 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
thing great or small is to be accomplished; and he
who would give anything away must see to it that
he find recipients who will do justice to the mean-
ing of his gift. This is why even the work of a
great man is not necessarily great when it is short,
abortive, or fruitless; for at the moment when he
performed it he must have failed to perceive that
it was really necessary; he must have been care-
less in his aim, and he cannot have chosen and
fixed upon the time with sufficient caution. Chance
thus became his master; for there is a very intimate
relation between greatness and the instinct which
discerns the proper moment at which to act.
We therefore leave it to those who doubt
Wagner's power of discerning the proper time for
action, to be concerned and anxious as to whether
what is now taking place in Bayreuth is really oppor-
tune and necessary. To us who are more confident
it is clear that he believes as strongly in the greatness
of his feat as in the greatness of feeling in those
who are to witness it. Be their number great or
small, therefore, all those who inspire this faith in
Wagner should feel extremely honoured; for that
it was not inspired by everybody, or by the whole
age, or even by the whole German people, as they
are now constituted, he himself told us in his
dedicatory address of the 22nd of May 1872, and not
one amongst us could, with any show of conviction,
assure him of the contrary. "I had only you to
turn to," he said, "when I sought those who I
thought would be in sympathy with my plans,—
you who are the most personal friends of my own
particular art, my work and activity: only you


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RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. 103
could I invite to help me in my work, that it
might be presented pure and whole to those who
manifest a genuine interest in my art, despite the
fact that it has hitherto made its appeal to them
only in a disfigured and adulterated form. "
It is certain that in Bayreuth even the spectator
is a spectacle worth seeing. If the spirit of some
observant sage were to return, after the absence of
a century, and were to compare the most remark-
able movements in the present world of culture, he
would find much to interest him there. Like one
swimming in a lake, who encounters a current of
warm water issuing from a hot spring, in Bayreuth
he would certainly feel as though he had suddenly
plunged into a more temperate element, and would
tell himself that this must rise out of a distant and
deeper source: the surrounding mass of water,
which at all events is more common in origin, does
not account for it. In this way, all those who
assist at the Bayreuth festival will seem like men
out of season; their raison-d'etre and the forces
which would seem to account for them are else-
where, and their home is not in the present age.
I realise ever more clearly that the scholar, in
so far as he is entirely the man of his own day,
can only be accessible to all that Wagner does and
thinks by means of parody,—and since everything
is parodied nowadays, he will even get the event
of Bayreuth reproduced for him, through the very
un-magic lanterns of our facetious art-critics. And
one ought to be thankful if they stop at parody;
for by means of it a spirit of aloofness and
animosity finds a vent which might otherwise hit


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104 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
upon a less desirable mode of expression. Now,
the observant sage already mentioned could not
remain blind to this unusual sharpness and tension
of contrasts. They who hold by gradual develop-
ment as a kind of moral law must be somewhat
shocked at the sight of one who, in the course of
a single lifetime, succeeds in producing something
absolutely new. Being dawdlers themselves, and
insisting upon slowness as a principle, they are
very naturally vexed by one who strides rapidly
ahead, and they wonder how on earth he does it.
No omens, no periods of transition, and no con-
cessions preceded the enterprise at Bayreuth; no
one except Wagner knew either the goal or the
long road that was to lead to it. In the realm of
art it signifies, so to speak, the first circumnaviga-
tion of the world, and by this voyage not only was
there discovered an apparently new art, but Art
itself. In view of this, all modern arts, as arts of
luxury which have degenerated through having
been insulated, have become almost worthless.
And the same applies to the nebulous and incon-
sistent reminiscences of a genuine art, which we
as modern Europeans derive from the Greeks; let
them rest in peace, unless they are now able to
shine of their own accord in the light of a new
interpretation.
The last hour has come for a good
many things; this new art is a clairvoyante that
sees ruin approaching—not for art alone. Her
warning voice must strike the whole of our prevail-
ing civilisation with terror the instant the laughter
which its parodies have provoked subsides. Let
it laugh and enjoy itself for yet a while longer!


## p. 105 (#203) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAVREUTH. 105
And as for us, the disciples of this revived art,
we shall have time and inclination for thoughtful-
ness, deep thoughtfulness. All the talk and noise
about art which has been made by civilisation
hitherto must seem like shameless obtrusiveness;
everything makes silence a duty with us—the quin-
quennial silence of the Pythagoreans. Which of
us has not soiled his hands and heart in the disgust-
ing idolatry of modern culture? Which of us can
exist without the waters of purification? Who
does not hear the voice which cries, " Be silent and
cleansed "? Be silent and cleansed! Only the merit
of being included among those who give ear to this
voice will grant even us the lofty look necessary
to view the event at Bayreuth; and only upon this
look depends the great future of the event.
When on that dismal and cloudy day in May
1872, after the foundation stone had been laid on
the height of Bayreuth, amid torrents of rain, and
while Wagner was driving back to the town with
a small party of us, he was exceptionally silent,
and there was that indescribable look in his eyes
as of one who has turned his gaze deeply inwards.
The day happened to be the first of his sixtieth
year, and his whole past now appeared as but a long
preparation for this great moment. It is almost a
recognised fact that in times of exceptional danger,
or at all decisive and culminating points in their
lives, men see the remotest and most recent events
of their career with singular vividness, and in one
rapid inward glance obtain a sort of panorama of
a whole span of years in which every event is faith-
fully depicted. What, for instance, must Alexander


## p. 106 (#204) ############################################

106 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
the Great have seen in that instant when he caused
Asia and Europe to be drunk out of the same
goblet? But what went through Wagner's mind on
that day—how he became what he is, and what he
will be—we only can imagine who are nearest to
him, and can follow him, up to a certain point, in
his self-examination; but through his eyes alone
is it possible for us to understand his grand work,
and by the help of this understanding vouch for
its fruitfulness.
II.
It were strange if what a man did best and most
liked to do could not be traced in the general out-
line of his life, and in the case of those who are
remarkably endowed there is all the more reason
for supposing that their life will present not only
the counterpart of their character, as in the case of
every one else, but that it will present above all the
counterpart of their intellect and their most in-
dividual tastes. The life of the epic poet will have
a dash of the Epos in it—as from all accounts was
the case with Goethe, whom the Germans very
wrongly regarded only as a lyrist—and the life of
the dramatist will probably be dramatic.
The dramatic element in Wagner's development
cannot be ignored, from the time when his ruling
passion became self-conscious and took possession
of his whole being. From that time forward there
is an end to all groping, straying, and sprouting of
offshoots, and over his most tortuous deviations
and excursions, over the often eccentric disposition


## p. 107 (#205) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. 107
of his plans, a single law and will are seen to rule,
in which we have the explanation of his actions,
however strange this explanation may sometimes
appear. There was, however, an ante-dramatic
period in Wagner's life—his childhood and youth—
which it is impossible to approach without discover-
ing innumerable problems. At this period there
seems to be no promise yet of himself, and what
one might now, in a retrospect, regard as a pledge
for his future greatness, amounts to no more than
a juxtaposition of traits which inspire more dismay
than hope; a restless and excitable spirit, nervously
eager to undertake a hundred things at the same
time, passionately fond of almost morbidly exalted
states of mind, and ready at any moment to veer
completely round from calm and profound medita-
tion to a state of violence and uproar. In his case
there were no hereditary or family influences at
work to constrain him to the sedulous study of one
particular art. Painting, versifying, acting, and
music were just as much within his reach as the
learning and the career of a scholar; and the super-
ficial inquirer into this stage of his life might even
conclude that he was born to be a dilettante. The
small world within the bounds of which he grew
up was not of the kind we should choose to be the
home of an artist. He ran the constant risk of
becoming infected by that dangerously dissipated
attitude of mind in which a person will taste of
everything, as also by that condition of slackness
resulting from the fragmentary knowledge of all
things, which is so characteristic of University
towns. His feelings were easily roused and but


## p. 108 (#206) ############################################

108 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
indifferently satisfied; wherever the boy turned,
he found himself surrounded by a wonderful and
would-be learned activity, to which the garish
theatres presented a ridiculous contrast, and the
entrancing strains of music a perplexing one. Now,
to the observer who sees things relatively, it must
seem strange that the modern man who happens
to be gifted with exceptional talent should as a
child and a youth so seldom be blessed with the
quality of ingenuousness and of simple individuality,
that he is so little able to have these qualities at
all. As a matter of fact, men of rare talent, like
Goethe and Wagner, much more often attain to
ingenuousness in manhood than during the more
tender years of childhood and youth. And this is
especially so with the artist, who, being born with
a more than usual capacity for imitating, succumbs
to the morbid multiformity of modern life as to a
virulent disease of infancy. As a child he will
more closely resemble an old man. The wonder-
fully accurate and original picture of youth which
Wagner gives us in the Siegfried of the Nibelungen
Ring could only have been conceived by a man,
and by one who had discovered his youthfulness
but late in life. Wagner's maturity, like his adol-
esence, was also late in making its appearance, and
he is thus, in this respect alone, the very reverse
of the precocious type.
The appearance of his moral and intellectual
strength was the prelude to the drama of his
soul. And how different it then became! His
nature seems to have been simplified at one terrible
stroke, and divided against itself into two instincts


## p. 109 (#207) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. 109
or spheres. From its innermost depths there gushes
forth a passionate will which, like a rapid mountain
torrent, endeavours to make its way through all
paths, ravines, and crevices, in search of light and
power. Only a force completely free and pure
was strong enough to guide this will to all that is
good and beneficial. Had it been combined with 1
a narrow intelligence, a will with such a tyrannical j
and boundless desire might have become fatal; in
any case, an exit into the open had to be found for
it as quickly as possible, whereby it could rush into
pure air and sunshine. Lofty aspirations, which .
continually meet with failure, ultimately turn to »
evil. The inadequacy of means for obtaining suc-
cess may, in certain circumstances, be the result of
an inexorable fate, and not necessarily of a lack of
strength; but he who under such circumstances
cannot abandon his aspirations, despite the inade-
quacy of his means, will only become embittered,
and consequently irritable and intolerant. He may
possibly seek the cause of his failure in other people;
he may even, in a fit of passion, hold the whole
world guilty; or he may turn defiantly down secret
byways and secluded lanes, or resort to violence.
In this way, noble natures, on their road to the
most high, may turn savage. Even among those
who seek but their own personal moral purity,
among monks and anchorites, men are to be found
who, undermined and devoured by failure, have
become barbarous and hopelessly morbid. There
was a spirit full of love and calm belief, full of
goodness and infinite tenderness, hostile to all
violence and self-deterioration, and abhorring the


## p. 110 (#208) ############################################

110 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
sight of a soul in bondage. And it was this spirit
which manifested itself to Wagner. It hovered over
him as a consoling angel, it covered him with its
wings, and showed him the true path. At this
stage we bring the other side of Wagner's nature
into view: but how shall we describe this other
side?
The characters an artist creates are not himself,
but the succession of these characters, to which it
is clear he is greatly attached, must at all events
reveal something of his nature. Now try and
recall Rienzi, the Flying Dutchman and Senta,
Tannhauser and Elizabeth, Lohengrin and Elsa,
Tristan and Marke, Hans Sachs, Woden and
Brunhilda, — all these characters are correlated
by a secret current of ennobling and broadening
morality which flows through them and becomes
ever purer and clearer as it progresses. And at
this point we enter with respectful reserve into
the presence of the most hidden development in
Wagner's own soul. In what other artist do we
meet with the like of this, in the same proportion?
Schiller's characters, from the Robbers to Wallen-
stein and Tell, do indeed pursue an ennobling
course, and likewise reveal something of their
author's development; but in Wagner the. standard
is higher and the distance covered is much greater.
In the Nibelungen Ring, for instance, where Brun-
hilda is awakened by Siegfried, I perceive the most
moral music I have ever heard. Here Wagner attains
to such a high level of sacred feeling that our mind
unconsciously wanders to the glistening ice- and
snow-peaks of the Alps, to find a likeness there;—


## p. 111 (#209) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. Ill
so pure, isolated, inaccessible, chaste, and bathed
in love-beams does Nature here display herself,
that clouds and tempests — yea, and even the
sublime itself — seem to lie beneath her. Now,
looking down from this height upon Tannhauser
and the Flying Dutchman, we begin to perceive
how the man in Wagner was evolved: how rest-
lessly and darkly he began; how tempestuously he
strove to gratify his desires, to acquire power and
to taste those rapturous delights from which he
often fled in disgust; how he wished to throw off
a yoke, to forget, to be negative, and to renounce
everything. The whole torrent plunged, now into
this valley, now into that, and flooded the most
secluded chinks and crannies. In the night of
these semi-subterranean convulsions a star ap-
peared and glowed high above him with melan-
choly vehemence; as soon as he recognised it, he
named it Fidelity—unselfish fidelity. Why did this
star seem to him the brightest and purest of all?
What secret meaning had the word " fidelity " to his
whole being? For he has graven its image and
problems upon all his thoughts and compositions.
His works contain almost a complete series of the
rarest and most beautiful examples of fidelity:
that of brother to sister, of friend to friend, of
servant to master; of Elizabeth to Tannhauser,
of Senta to the Dutchman, of Elsa to Lohengrin, ,
of Isolde, Kurvenal, and Marke to Tristan, of
Brunhilda to the most secret vows of Woden—and
many others. It is Wagner's most personal and
most individual experience, which he reveres like
a religious mystery, and which he calls Fidelity;


## p. 112 (#210) ############################################

112 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
he never wearies of breathing it into hundreds of
different characters, and of endowing it with the
sublimest that in him lies, so overflowing is his
gratitude. It is, in short, the. recognition of the
fact that the two sides of his nature remained
faithful to each other, that out of free and unselfish
love, the creative, ingenuous, and brilliant side
kept loyally abreast of the dark, the intractable, and
the tyrannical side.
III.
The relation of the two constituent forces to
each other, and the yielding of the one to the other
was the great requisite by which alone he could
remain wholly and truly himself. At the same
time, this was the only thing he could not control,
and over which he could only keep a watch, while
the temptations to infidelity and its threatening
dangers beset him more and more. The uncer-
tainty derived therefrom is an overflowing source
of suffering for those in process of development.
Each of his instincts made constant efforts to attain
to unmeasured heights, and each of the capacities
he possessed for enjoying life seemed to long to
tear itself away from its companions in order to
seek satisfaction alone; the greater their exuber-
ance the more terrific was the tumult, and the more
bitter the competition between them. In addition,
accident and life fired the desire for power and
splendour in him; but he was more often tor-
mented by the cruel necessity of having to live at
all, while all around him lay obstacles and snares


## p. 113 (#211) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. II3
How is it possible for any one to remain faithful
here, to be completely steadfast? This doubt often
depressed him, and he expresses it, as an artist
expressed his doubt, in artistic forms. Elizabeth,
for instance, can only suffer, pray, and die; she
saves the fickle and intemperate man by her
loyalty, though not for this life. In the path of
every true artist, whose lot is cast in these modern
days, despair and danger are strewn. He has
many means whereby he can attain to honour and
might; peace and plenty persistently offer them-
selves to him, but only in that form recognised
by the modern man, which to the straightforward
artist is no better than choke-damp. In this
temptation, and in the act of resisting it, lie the
dangers that threaten him—dangers arising from
his disgust at the means modernity offers him of
acquiring pleasure and esteem, and from the indig-
nation provoked by the selfish ease of modern
society. Imagine Wagner's filling an official posi-
tion, as for instance that of bandmaster at public
and court theatres, both of which positions he has
held: think how he, a serious artist, must have
struggled in order to enforce seriousness in those
very places which, to meet the demands of modern
conventions, are designed with almost systematic
frivolity to appeal only to the frivolous. Think
how he must have partially succeeded, though only
to fail on the whole. How constantly disgust
must have been at his heels despite his repeated
attempts to flee it, how he failed to find the haven
to which he might have repaired, and how he had
ever to return to the Bohemians and outlaws of our
H


## p. 113 (#212) ############################################

II2
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
he never wearies of breathing it into hundreds of
different characters, and of endowing it with the
sublimest that in him lies, so overflowing is his
gratitude. It is, in short, the recognition of the
fact that the two sides of his nature remained
faithful to each other, that out of free and unselfish
love, the creative, ingenuous, and brilliant side
kept loyally abreast of the dark, the intractable, and
the tyrannical side.
III.
The relation of the two constituent forces to
each other, and the yielding of the one to the other
was the great requisite by which alone he could
remain wholly and truly himself. At the same
time, this was the only thing he could not control,
and over which he could only keep a watch, while
the temptations to infidelity and its threatening
dangers beset him more and more. The uncer-
tainty derived therefrom is an overflowing source
of suffering for those in process of development.
Each of his instincts made constant efforts to attain
to unmeasured heights, and each of the capacities
he possessed for enjoying life seemed to long to
tear itself away from its companions in order to
seek satisfaction alone; the greater their exuber-
ance the more terrific was the tumult, and the more
bitter the competition between them. In addition,
accident and life fired the desire for power and
splendour in him; but he was more often tor-
mented by the cruel necessity of having to live at
all, while all around him lay obstacles and snares


## p. 113 (#213) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH.
113
How is it possible for any one to remain faithful
here, to be completely steadfast? This doubt often
depressed him, and he expresses it, as an artist
expressed his doubt, in artistic forms. Elizabeth,
for instance, can only suffer, pray, and die; she
saves the fickle and intemperate man by her
loyalty, though not for this life. In the path of
every true artist, whose lot is cast in these modern
days, despair and danger are strewn. He has
many means whereby he can attain to honour and
might; peace and plenty persistently offer them-
selves to him, but only in that form recognised
by the modern man, which to the straightforward
artist is no better than choke-damp. In this
temptation, and in the act of resisting it, lie the
dangers that threaten him-dangers arising from
his disgust at the means modernity offers him of
acquiring pleasure and esteem, and from the indig-
nation provoked by the selfish ease of modern
society. Imagine Wagner's filling an official posi-
tion, as for instance that of bandmaster at public
and court theatres, both of which positions he has
held: think how he, a serious artist, must have
struggled in order to enforce seriousness in those
very places which, to meet the demands of modern
conventions, are designed with almost systematic
frivolity to appeal only to the frivolous. Think
how he must have partially succeeded, though only
to fail on the whole. How constantly disgust
must have been at his heels despite his repeated
attempts to flee it, how he failed to find the haven
to which he might have repaired, and how he had
ever to return to the Bohemians and outlaws of our
H


## p. 114 (#214) ############################################

114 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
society, as one of them. If he himself broke loose
from any post or position, he rarely found a better
one in its stead, while more than once distress was
all that his unrest brought him. Thus Wagner
changed his associates, his dwelling-place and
country, and when we come to comprehend the
nature of the circles into which he gravitated, we
can hardly realise how he was able to tolerate
them for any length of time. The greater half of
his past seems to be shrouded in heavy mist; for a
long time he appears to have had no general hopes,
but only hopes for the morrow, and thus, although
he reposed no faith in the future, he was not driven
to despair. He must have felt like a nocturnal
traveller, broken with fatigue, exasperated from
want of sleep, and tramping wearily along be-
neath a heavy burden, who, far from fearing the
sudden approach of death, rather longs for it as
something exquisitely charming. His burden,
the road and the night—all would disappear 1
The thought was a temptation to him. Again and
again, buoyed up by his temporary hopes, he
plunged anew into the turmoil of life, and left
all apparatus behind him. But his method of
doing this, his lack of moderation in the doing,
betrayed what a feeble hold his hopes had upon
him; how they were only stimulants to which he
had recourse in an extremity. The conflict be-
tween his aspirations and his partial or total
inability to realise them, tormented him like a thorn
in the flesh. Infuriated by constant privations, his
imagination lapsed into the dissipated, whenever
the state of want was momentarily relieved. Life


## p. 115 (#215) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. US
grew ever more and more complicated for him;
but the means and artifices that he discovered in
his art as a dramatist became evermore resourceful
and daring. Albeit, these were little more than
palpable dramatic makeshifts and expedients,
which deceived, and were invented, only for the
moment. In a flash such means occurred to his
mind and were used up. Examined closely and
without prepossession, Wagner's life, to recall one
of Schopenhauer's expressions, might be said to
consist largely of comedy, not to mention burlesque.
And what the artist's feelings must have been,
conscious as he was, during whole periods of his
life, of this undignified element in it,—he who
more than any one else, perhaps, breathed freely
only in sublime and more than sublime spheres,—
the thinker alone can form any idea.
In the midst of this mode of life, a detailed de-
scription of which is necessary in order to inspire the
amount of pity, awe, and admiration which are its
due, he developed a talent for acquiring knowledge, /
which even in a German—a son of the nation learned
above all others—was really extraordinary. And
with this talent yet another danger threatened
Wagner—a danger more formidable than that in-
volved in a life which was apparently without either
a stay or a rule, borne hither and thither by disturb-
ing illusions. From a novice trying his strength
Wagner became a thorough master of music and
of the theatre, as also a prolific inventor in the pre-
liminary technical conditions for the execution of
art . No one will any longer deny him the glory of
having given us the supreme model for lofty artistic


## p. 116 (#216) ############################################

Il6 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
execution on a large scale. But he became more
than this, and in order so to develop, he, no less
than any one else in like circumstances, had to
reach the highest degree of culture by virtue of his
studies. And wonderfully he achieved this end!
It is delightful to follow his progress. From all
sides material seemed to come unto him and into
him, and the larger and heavier the resulting struc-
ture became, the more rigid was the arch of the
ruling and ordering thought supporting it. And
yet access to the sciences and arts has seldom been
made more difficult for any man than for Wagner;
so much so that he had almost to break his own
road through to them. The reviver of the simple
drama, the discoverer of the position due to art in
true human society, the poetic interpreter of by-
ljgone views of life, the philosopher, the historian, the
Nesthete and the critic, the master of languages, the
mythologist and the myth poet, who was the first to
include all these wonderful and beautiful products
of primitive times in a single Ring, upon which
he engraved the runic characters of his thoughts—
what a wealth of knowledge must Wagner have
accumulated and commanded, in order to have be-
come all that! And yet this mass of material was
just as powerless to impede the action of his will
as a matter of detail—however attractive—was to
draw his purpose from its path. For the excep-
tional character of such conduct to be appreciated
fully, it should be compared with that of Goethe,—
he who, as a student and as a sage, resembled
nothing so much as a huge river-basin, which
does not pour all its water into the sea, but spends


## p. 117 (#217) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. 117
as much of it on its way there, and at its various
twists and turns, as it ultimately disgorges at its
mouth. True, a nature like Goethe's not only
has, but also engenders, more pleasure than any
other; there is more mildness and noble profligacy
in it; whereas the tenor and tempo of Wagner's
pCwer at times provoke both fear and flight. But
let him fear who will, we shall only be the more
courageous, in that we shall be permitted to come
face to face with a hero who, in regard to modern
culture, " has never learned the meaning of fear. "
But neither has he learned to look for repose in
history and philosophy, nor to derive those subtle
influences from their study which tend to paralyse
action or to soften a man unduly. Neither the
creative nor the militant artist in him was ever
diverted from his purpose by learning and culture.
The moment his constructive powers direct him,
history becomes yielding clay in his hands. His
attitude towards it then differs from that of every
scholar, and more nearly resembles the relation of
the ancient Greek to his myths; that is to say, his
subject is something he may fashion, and about
which he may write verses. He will naturally do
this with love and a certain becoming reverence,
but with the sovereign right of the creator notwith-
standing. And precisely because history is more
supple and more variable than a dream to him, he
can invest the most individual case with the char-
acteristics of a whole age, and thus attain to a
vividness of narrative of which historians are quite
incapable. In what work of art, of any kind, has
the body and soul of the Middle Ages ever been


## p. 118 (#218) ############################################

Il8 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
so thoroughly depicted as in Lohengrin? And
will not the Meistersingers continue to acquaint
men, even in the remotest ages to come, with the
nature of Germany's soul? Will they not do more
than acquaint men of it? Will they not represent
its very ripest fruit — the fruit of that spirit
wJhich ever wishes to reform and not to overthrow,
and which, despite the broad couch of comfort on
which it lies, has not forgotten how to endure the
noblest discomfort when a worthy and novel deed
has to be accomplished?
And it is just to this kind of discomfort that
Wagner always felt himself drawn by his study of
history and philosophy: in them he not only found
arms and coats of mail, but what he felt in their
presence above all was the inspiring breath which
is wafted from the graves of all great fighters,
sufferers, and thinkers. Nothing distinguishes a
Sman more from the general pattern of the age
than the use he makes of history and philosophy.
According to present views, the former seems to
have been allotted the duty of giving modern man
breathing-time, in the midst of his panting and
strenuous scurry towards his goal, so that he may,
for a space, imagine he has slipped his leash.
What Montaigne was as an individual amid the
turmoil of the Reformation—that is to say, a
creature inwardly coming to peace with himself,
serenely secluded in himself and taking breath,
as his best reader, Shakespeare, understood him,
—this is what history is to the modern spirit to-
day. The fact that the Germans, for a whole
century, have devoted themselves more particularly


## p. 119 (#219) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. 119
to the study of history, only tends to prove that
they are the stemming, retarding, and becalming
force in the activity of modern society—a circum-
stance which some, of course, will place to their
credit. On the whole, however, it is a dangerous
symptom when the mind of a nation turns with
preference to the study of the past. It is a sign of
flagging strength, of decline and degeneration; it r
denotes that its people are perilously near to falling
victims to the first fever that may happen to be rife
—the political fever among others. Now, in the
history of modern thought, our scholars are an
example of this condition of weakness as opposed
to all reformative and revolutionary activity. The
mission they have chosen is not of the noblest;
they have rather been content to secure smug
happiness for their kind, and little more. Every
independent and manly step leaves them halting
in the background, although it by no means out-
strips history. For the latter is possessed of vastly
different powers, which only natures like Wagner
have any notion of; but it requires to be written
in a much more earnest and severe spirit, by much
more vigorous students, and with much less op-
timism than has been the case hitherto. In fact, it
requires to be treated quite differently from the way
German scholars have treated it until now. In all
their works there is a continual desire to embellish,
to submit and to be content, while the course of
events invariably seems to have their approbation.
It is rather the exception for one of them to imply
that he is satisfied only because things might have
turned out worse; for most of them believe, almost


## p. 120 (#220) ############################################

120 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
as a matter of course, that everything has been for
the best simply because it has only happened once.
Were history not always a disguised Christian
theodicy, were it written with more justice and
fervent feeling, it would be the very last thing on
earth to be made to serve the purpose it now serves,
namely, that of an opiate against everything sub-
versive and novel. And philosophy is in the
same plight: all that the majority demand of it is,
that it may teach them to understand approxi-
mate facts—very approximate facts—in order that
they may then become adapted to them. And
even its noblest exponents press its soporific and
comforting powers so strongly to the fore, that
all lovers of sleep and of loafing must think that
their aim and the aim of philosophy are one. For
my part, the most important question philosophy
has to decide seems to be, how far things have
acquired an unalterable stamp and form, and, once
this question has been answered, I think it the
duty of philosophy unhesitatingly and courage-
ously to proceed with the task of improving that
part of the world which has been recognised as still
susceptible to change. But genuine philosophers do,
as a matter of fact, teach this doctrine themselves,
inasmuch as they work at endeavouring to alter
the very changeable views of men, and do not keep
their opinions to themselves. Genuine disciples of
genuine philosophies also teach this doctrine; for,
like Wagner, they understand the art of deriving
a more decisive and inflexible will from their
master's teaching, rather than an opiate or a
sleeping draught. Wagner is most philosophical


## p. 121 (#221) ############################################

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH. 121
where he is most powerfully active and heroic. It
was as a philosopher that he went, not only r
through the fire of various philosophical systems
without fear, but also through the vapours of
science and scholarship, while remaining ever true
to his highest self. And it was this highest self
which exacted from his versatile spirit works as
complete as his were, which bade him suffer and
learn, that he might accomplish such works.
IV.
The history of the development of culture since
the time of the Greeks is short enough, when we
take into consideration the actual ground it covers,
and ignore the periods during which man stood
still, went backwards, hesitated or strayed. The
Hellenising of the world—and to make this pos-
sible, the Orientalising of Hellenism—that double
mission of Alexander the Great, still remains the
most important event: the old question whether
a foreign civilisation may be transplanted is still
the problem that the peoples of modern times are
vainly endeavouring to solve. The rhythmic play
of those two factors against each other is the force
that has determined the course of history hereto-
fore. Thus Christianity appears, for instance, as
a product of Oriental antiquity, which was thought
out and pursued to its ultimate conclusions
by men, with almost intemperate thoroughness.
As its influence began to decay, the power of
Hellenic culture was revived, and we are now


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