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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
the Idea which appears in them. In the manifold forms of hu
man life, and in the unceasing change of events, he will regard
the Idea only as the abiding and essential, in which the will
to live has its fullest objectivity, and which shows its different
sides in the capacities, the passions, the errors, and the excel-
lences, of the human race; in self-interest, hatred, love, fear,
boldness, frivolity, stupidity, slyness, wit, genius, and so forth,—
all of which, crowding together and combining in thousands of
forms (individuals), continually create the history of the great
and the little world, in which it is all the same whether they are
set in motion by nuts or by crowns. Finally he will find that
in the world it is the same as in the dramas of Gozzi, in all
of which the same persons appear, with like intention and with a
like fate: the motives and incidents are certainly different in each
piece, but the spirit of the incidents is the same; the actors in
one piece know nothing of the incidents of another, although
they performed in it themselves: therefore after all experience of
former pieces, Pantaloon has become no more agile or generous,
Tartaglia no more conscientious, Brighella no more courageous,
and Columbine no more modest.
Suppose we were allowed for once a clearer glance into the
kingdom of the possible, and over the whole chain of causes and
effects: if the earth-spirit appeared and showed us in a picture
all the greatest men, enlighteners of the world, and heroes, that
chance destroyed before they were ripe for their work; then the
great events that would have changed the history of the world.
and brought in periods of the highest culture and enlightenment,
but which the blindest chance-the most insignificant accident-
hindered at the outset; lastly the splendid powers of great men,
that would have enriched whole ages of the world, but which,
either misled by error or fashion, or compelled by necessity,
they squandered uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful objects, or
even wasted in play. If we saw all this, we should shudder
and lament at the thought of the lost treasures of whole periods
of the world. But the earth-spirit would smile and say, "The
source from which the individuals and their powers proceed is
inexhaustible and unending as time and space; for like these
forms of all phenomena, they also are only phenomena,— visi-
bility of the will. No finite measure can exhaust that infinite
source; therefore an undiminished eternity is always open for the
return of any event or work that was nipped in the bud. In this


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
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world of phenomena, true loss is just as little possible as true
gain. The will alone is: it is the thing in-itself, and the source
of all these phenomena. Its self-knowledge and its assertion or
denial, which is then decided upon, is the only event in-itself.
All willing arises from want; therefore from deficiency, and
therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish ends it; yet
for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten which are
denied. Further, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite:
the satisfaction is short and scantily measured out. But even the
final satisfaction is itself only apparent; every satisfied wish at
once makes room for a new one: both are illusions; the one is
known to be so, the other not yet. No attained object of desire
can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting gratification:
it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive
to-day that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. There-
fore so long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long
as we are given up to the throng of desires with their constant
hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing,- we
can never have lasting happiness nor peace. It is essentially all
the same whether we pursue or flee, fear injury or seek enjoy-
ment: the care for the constant demands of the will, in whatever
form it may be, continually occupies and sways the conscious-
ness; but without peace no true well-being is possible. The
subject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the revolving
wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaids, is the
ever-longing Tantalus.
But when some external cause or inward disposition lifts us
suddenly out of the endless stream of willing,- delivers knowl-
edge from the slavery of the will,-the attention is no longer
directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free
from their relation to the will; and thus observes them without
personal interest, without subjectivity, purely objectively,-— gives
itself entirely up to them so far as they are ideas, but not in
so far as they are motives. Then all at once the peace which
we were always seeking, but which always fled from us on the
former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord; and
it is well with us. It is the painless state which Epicurus prized
as the highest good and as the state of the gods: for we are for
the moment set free from the miserable striving of the will; we
keep the Sabbath of the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of
Ixion stands still.


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Tragedy is to be regarded, and is recognized, as the summit
of poetical art, both on account of the greatness of its effect and
the difficulty of its achievement. It is very significant for our
whole system, and well worthy of observation, that the end of
this highest poetical achievement is the representation of the ter-
rible side of life. The unspeakable pain, the wail of humanity,
the triumph of evil, the scornful mastery of chance, and the
irretrievable fall of the just and innocent, is here presented to
us; and in this lies a significant hint of the nature of the world.
and of existence. It is the strife of will with itself, which here,
completely unfolded at the highest grade of its objectivity, comes
into fearful prominence. It becomes visible in the suffering of
men, which is now introduced: partly through chance and error,
which appear as the rulers of the world,-personified as fate on
account of their insidiousness, which even reaches the appearance
of design; partly it proceeds from man himself, through the self-
mortifying efforts of a few, through the wickedness and pervers-
ity of most. It is one and the same will that lives and appears
in them all, but whose phenomena fight against each other and
destroy each other. In one individual it appears powerfully, in
another more weakly; in one more subject to reason and soft-
ened by the light of knowledge, in another less so: till at last,
in some single case, this knowledge, purified and heightened by
suffering itself, reaches the point at which the phenomenon, the
veil of Maya, no longer deceives it. It sees through the form
of the phenomenon the principium individuationis. The egoism
which rests on this perishes with it, so that now the motives that
were so powerful before have lost their might; and instead of
them the complete knowledge of the nature of the world, which
has a quieting effect on the will, produces resignation,—the sur-
render not merely of life, but of the very will to live. Thus
we see in tragedies the noblest men, after long conflict and suf-
fering, at last renounce the ends they have so keenly followed,
and all the pleasures of life forever, or else freely and joyfully
surrender life itself. So is it with Calderon's steadfast prince;
with Gretchen in 'Faust'; with Hamlet, whom his friend Hora-
tio would willingly follow, but is bade remain awhile, and in this
harsh world draw his breath in pain, to tell the story of Hamlet
and clear his memory; so also is it with the Maid of Orleans, the
Bride of Messina: they all die purified by suffering,—i. e. , after
the will to live which was formerly in them is dead. In the


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12935
'Mohammed' of Voltaire this is actually expressed in the con-
cluding words which the dying Pelmira addresses to Moham-
med: "The world is for tyrants: live! " On the other hand,
the demand for so-called poetical justice rests on entire miscon-
ception of the nature of tragedy, and indeed of the nature of
the world itself. It boldly appears in all its dullness in the
criticisms which Dr. Samuel Johnson made on particular plays
of Shakespeare, for he very naïvely laments its entire absence.
And its absence is certainly obvious; for in what has Ophelia,
Desdemona, or Cordelia offended? But only the dull, optimis-
tic, Protestant-rationalistic, or peculiarly Jewish view of life will
make the demand for poetical justice, and find satisfaction in it.
The true sense of tragedy is the deeper insight that it is not his
own individual sins that the hero atones for, but original sin,-
i. e. , the crime of existence itself:-
<< Pues el delito mayor
Del hombre es haber nacido,”
("For the greatest crime
Of man is that he was born, ")
as Calderon exactly expresses it.
I shall allow myself only one remark more closely concerning
the treatment of tragedy. The representation of a great misfor-
tune is alone essential to tragedy. But the many different ways
in which this is introduced by the poet may be brought under
three specific conceptions. It may happen by means of a char-
acter of extraordinary wickedness, touching the utmost limits of
possibility, who becomes the author of the misfortune: examples
of this kind are Richard III. , Iago in 'Othello,' Shylock in 'The
Merchant of Venice,' Franz Moor [of Schiller's 'Robbers'], the
Phædra of Euripides, Creon in the 'Antigone,' etc. , etc. Secondly,
it may happen through blind fate,—i. e. , chance and error: a true
pattern of this kind is the Edipus Rex of Sophocles, the 'Trachi-
niæ also; and in general most of the tragedies of the ancients
belong to this class. Among modern tragedies, 'Romeo and Juliet,'
Voltaire's Tancred,' and 'The Bride of Messina,' are examples.
Lastly, the misfortune may be brought about by the mere position.
of the dramatis persona with regard to each other, through their
relations, so that there is no need either for a tremendous error
or an unheard-of accident, nor yet for a character whose wicked-
ness reaches the limits of human possibility; but characters of


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
ordinary morality, under circumstances such as often occur, are
so situated with regard to each other that their position compels
them, knowingly and with their eyes open, to do each other the
greatest injury, without any one of them being entirely in the
wrong.
This last kind of tragedy seems to me far to surpass the
other two; for it shows us the greatest misfortune, not as an
exception, not as something occasioned by way of circumstances
or monstrous characters, but as arising easily and of itself out of
the actions and characters of men,—indeed almost as essential to
them, and thus brings it terribly near to us. In the other two
kinds, we may look on the prodigious fate and the horrible wick-
edness as terrible powers which certainly threaten us, but only
from afar, which we may very well escape without taking refuge in
renunciation. But in this last kind of tragedy, we see that those
powers which destroy happiness and life are such that their path
to us also is open at every moment; we see the greatest suffer-
ings brought about by entanglements that our fate might also
partake of, and through actions that perhaps we also are capable
of performing, and so could not complain of injustice: then,
shuddering, we feel ourselves already in the midst of hell. This
last kind of tragedy is also the most difficult of achievement; for
the greatest effect has to be produced in it with the least use
of means and causes of movement, merely through the position
and distribution of the characters: therefore even in many of the
best tragedies this difficulty is evaded. Yet one tragedy may be
referred to as a perfect model of this kind,—a tragedy which
in other respects is far surpassed by more than one work of the
same great master; it is 'Clavigo. ' 'Hamlet' belongs to a certain
extent to this class, as far as the relation of Hamlet to Laertes
and Ophelia is concerned. 'Wallenstein' has also this excel-
lence. Faust' belongs entirely to this class, if we regard the
events connected with Gretchen and her brother as the principal
action; also the 'Cid' of Corneille, only that it lacks the tragic
conclusion, while on the contrary the analogous relation of Max
to Thecla has it.
―――
Thus between desiring and attaining, all human life flows
on throughout. The wish is, in its nature, pain; the attainment
soon begets satiety, the end was only apparent; possession takes
away the charm: the wish, the need, presents itself under a
new form; when it does not, then follow desolateness, emptiness,


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ennui,― against which the conflict is just as painful as against
want. That wish and satisfaction should follow each other nei-
ther too quickly nor too slowly, reduces to the smallest amount
the suffering which both occasion, and constitutes the happiest
life. For that which we might otherwise call the most beauti-
ful part of life, its purest joy (if it were only because it lifts us
out of real existence and transforms us into disinterested spec-
tators of it),- that is, pure knowledge, which is foreign to all
willing, the pleasure of the beautiful, the pure delight in art,-
this is granted only to a very few, because it demands rare tal-
ents; and to these few only as a passing dream. And then even
these few, on account of their higher intellectual powers, are
made susceptible of far greater suffering than duller minds can
ever feel, and are also placed in lonely isolation by a nature
which is obviously different from that of others; thus here also
accounts are squared. But to the great majority of men, purely
intellectual pleasures are not accessible. They are almost wholly
incapable of the joys which lie in pure knowledge. They are
entirely given up to willing. If therefore anything is to win
their sympathy, to be interesting to them, it must (as is implied
in the meaning of the word) in some way excite their will, even
if it is only through a distant and merely problematical relation
to it; the will must not be left altogether out of the question,
for their existence lies far more in willing than in knowing:
action and reaction is their one element. We may find in trifles
and every-day occurrences the naïve expressions of this quality.
Thus, for example, at any place worth seeing they may visit,
they write their names, in order thus to react, to affect the place
since it does not affect them. Again, when they see a strange
rare animal, they cannot easily confine themselves to merely
observing it; they must rouse it, tease it, play with it, merely
to experience action and reaction: but this need for excitement
of the will manifests itself very specially in the discovery and
support of card-playing, which is quite peculiarly the expression
of the miserable side of humanity.
As far as the life of the individual is concerned, every biogra-
phy is the history of suffering; for every life is, as a rule, a
continual series of great and small misfortunes, which each one
conceals as much as possible because he knows that others can
seldom feel sympathy or compassion, but almost always satisfac-
tion at the sight of the woes from which they are themselves
-
•


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
for the moment exempt. But perhaps at the end of life, if a
man is sincere and in full possession of his faculties, he will
never wish to have it to live over again; but rather than this, he
will much prefer absolute annihilation. The essential content of
the famous soliloquy in 'Hamlet' is briefly this: Our state is so
wretched that absolute annihilation would be decidedly prefer-
able. If suicide really offered us this, so that the alternative
"to be or not to be," in the full sense of the word, was placed
before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as
"a consummation devoutly to be wished. " But there is something
in us which tells us that this is not the case: suicide is not the
end; death is not absolute annihilation. In like manner, what
was said by the Father of History has not since him been con-
tradicted, that no man has ever lived who has not wished more
than once that he had not to live the following day. According
to this, the brevity of life, which is so constantly lamented, may
be the best quality it possesses.
If, finally, we should bring clearly to a man's sight the terri-
ble sufferings and miseries to which his life is constantly exposed,
he would be seized with horror: and if we were to conduct the
confirmed optimist through the hospitals, infirmaries, and surgical
operating-rooms, through the prisons, torture chambers, and slave
kennels, over battle-fields and places of execution; if we were
to open to him all the dark abodes of misery, where it hides
itself from the glance of cold curiosity, and finally allow him to
glance into Ugolino's dungeon of starvation,- he too would under-
stand at last the nature of this "best of possible worlds. " For
whence did Dante take the materials for his hell, but from this
our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it.
And when, on the other hand, he came to the task of describ-
ing heaven and its delights, he had an insurmountable difficulty
before him; for our world affords no materials at all for this.
Therefore there remained nothing for him to do, but, instead
of describing the joys of Paradise, to repeat to us the instruc-
tion given him there by his ancestor, by Beatrice, and by various
saints.
—
-
―
But from this it is sufficiently clear what manner of world it
is. Certainly human life, like all bad ware, is covered over with
a false lustre. What suffers always conceals itself. On the other
hand, whatever pomp or splendor any one can get, he openly
makes a show of: and the more his inner contentment deserts


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12939
him, the more he desires to exist as fortunate in the opinion
of others, to such an extent does folly go; and the opinion of
others is a chief aim of the efforts of every one, although the
utter nothingness of it is expressed in the fact that in almost
all languages vanity, vanitas, originally signifies emptiness and
nothingness. But under all this false show, the miseries of life
can so increase-and this happens every day-that the death
which hitherto has been feared above all things is eagerly seized
upon. Indeed, if fate will show its whole malice, even this refuge
is denied to the sufferer; and in the hands of enraged enemies,
he may remain exposed to terrible and slow tortures without
remedy. In vain the sufferer then calls on his gods for help: he
remains exposed to his fate without grace.
But this irremediableness is only the mirror of the invinci-
ble nature of his will, of which his person is the objectivity. As
little as
an external power can change or suppress this will,
so little can a foreign power deliver it from the miseries which
proceed from the life which is the phenomenal appearance of
that will. In the principal matter, as in everything else, a man
is always thrown back upon himself. In vain does he make to
himself gods, in order to get from them by prayers and flattery
what can only be accomplished by his own will-power. The Old
Testament made the world and man the work of a god; but the
New Testament saw that in order to teach that holiness, and sal-
vation from the sorrows of this world, can only come from the
world itself, it was necessary that this god should become man.
It is and remains the will of man upon which everything depends
for him. Fanatics, martyrs, saints of every faith and name, have
voluntarily and gladly endured every torture, because in them
the will to live had suppressed itself; and then even the slow
destruction of its phenomenon was welcome to them. But I do
not wish to anticipate the later exposition. For the rest, I can-
not here avoid the statement that to me, optimism, when it is not
merely the thoughtless talk of such as harbor nothing but words
under their low foreheads, appears not merely as an absurd, but
also as a really wicked way of thinking; as a bitter mockery of
the unspeakable suffering of humanity. Let no one think that
Christianity is favorable to optimism; for on the contrary, in the
Gospels, "world" and "evil" are used as almost synonymous.
All suffering, since it is a mortification and a call to resigna
tion, has potentially a sanctifying power. This is the explanation


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
of the fact that every great misfortune or deep pain inspires a
certain awe. But the sufferer only really becomes an object of
reverence, when, surveying the course of his life as a chain of
sorrows, or mourning some great and incurable misfortune, he
does not really look at the special combination of circumstances
which has plunged his own life into suffering, nor stops at the
single great misfortune that has befallen him; - for in so doing,
his knowledge still follows the principle of sufficient reason, and
clings to the particular phenomenon; he still wills life, only not
under the conditions which have happened to him; - but only
then, I say, is he truly worthy of reverence when he raises his
glance from the particular to the universal, when he regards his
suffering as merely an example of the whole, and for him—
since in a moral regard he partakes of genius-one case stands
for a thousand; so that the whole of life, conceived as essentially
suffering, brings him to resignation. Therefore it inspires rever-
ence, when in Goethe's 'Torquato Tasso' the princess speaks of
how her own life and that of her relations has always been sad
and joyless, and yet regards the matter from an entirely univer-
sal point of view.
A very noble character we always imagine with a certain trace
of quiet sadness, which is anything but a constant fretfulness
at daily annoyances (this would be an ignoble trait, and lead us
to fear a bad disposition), but is a consciousness derived from
knowledge of the vanity of all possessions,- of the suffering of
all life, not merely of his own. But such knowledge may pri
marily be awakened by the personal experience of suffering,
especially some one great sorrow; as a single unfulfilled wish
brought Petrarch to that state of resigned sadness concerning the
whole of life which appeals to us so pathetically in his works,—
for the Daphne he pursued had to flee from his hands in order
to leave him, instead of herself, the immortal laurel. When
through some such great and irrevocable denial of fate the will
is to some extent broken, almost nothing else is desired; and the
character shows itself mild, just, noble, and resigned. Finally,
when grief has no definite object, but extends itself over the
whole of life, then it is to a certain extent a going into itself;
a withdrawal, a gradual disappearance of the will, whose visible
manifestation, the body, it imperceptibly but surely undermines,—
so that a man feels a certain loosening of his bonds, a mild fore-
taste of that death which promises to be the abolition at once of


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12941
1
-
the body and of the will. Therefore a secret pleasure accom-
panies this grief; and it is this, as I believe, which the most
melancholy of all nations has called "the joy of grief. " But here
also lies the danger of sentimentality, both in life itself and in
the representation of it in poetry; when a man is always mourn-
ing and lamenting without courageously rising to resignation.
In this way we lose both earth and heaven, and retain merely
a watery sentimentality. Only if suffering assumes the form of
pure knowledge—and this, acting as a quieter of the will, brings
about resignation-is it worthy of reverence.
In this regard, however, we feel a certain respect at the sight
of every great sufferer, which is akin to the feeling excited by
virtue and nobility of character, and also seems like a reproach
of our own happy condition. We cannot help regarding every sor-
row-both our own and those of others as at least a potential
advance towards virtue and holiness; and on the contrary, pleas-
ures and worldly satisfactions as a retrogression from them. This
goes so far that every man who endures a great bodily or mental
suffering, indeed, every one who merely performs some physical
labor which demands the greatest exertion, in the sweat of his
brow and with evident exhaustion, yet with patience and with-
out murmuring,—every such man, I say, if we consider him with
close attention, appears to us like a sick man who tries a pain-
ful cure; and who willingly, and even with satisfaction, endures
the suffering it causes him, because he knows that the more
he suffers the more the cause of his disease is affected, and that
therefore the present suffering is the measure of his cure.
According to what has been said, the denial of the will to
live - which is just what is called absolute, entire resignation, or
holiness always proceeds from that quieter of the will which
the knowledge of its inner conflict and essential vanity, express-
ing themselves in the suffering of all living things, becomes. The
difference which we have represented as two paths consists in
whether that knowledge is called up by suffering which is merely
and purely known, and is freely appropriated by means of the
penetration of the principium individuationis, or by suffering
which is directly felt by a man himself. True salvation — deliv-
erance from life and suffering-cannot even be imagined with-
out complete denial of the will. Till then, every one is simply
this will itself; whose manifestation is an ephemeral existence, a
-
--
-
――――
-


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
constantly vain and empty striving, and the world full of suffer-
ing we have represented, to which all irrevocably and in like
manner belong. For we found above that life is always assured
to the will to live; and its one real form is the present, from
which they can never escape, since birth and death reign in the
phenomenal world. The Indian mythus expresses this by saying
"they are born again. " The great ethical difference of character
means this: that the bad man is infinitely far from the attain-
ment of the knowledge from which the denial of the will pro-
ceeds, and therefore he is in truth actually exposed to all the
miseries which appear in life as possible; for even the present
fortunate condition of his personality is merely a phenomenon
produced by the principium individuationis, and a delusion of
Maya,- the happy dream of a beggar. The sufferings which in
the vehemence and ardor of his will he inflicts upon others are
the measure of the suffering, the experience of which in his own.
person cannot break his will, and plainly lead it to the denial
of itself. All true and pure love, on the other hand, and even
all free justice, proceed from the penetration of the principium
individuationis, which, if it appears with its full power, results
in perfect sanctification and salvation,- the phenomenon of which
is the state of resignation described above, the unbroken peace
which accompanies it, and the greatest delight in death.
If, however, it should be absolutely insisted upon that in
some way or other a positive knowledge should be attained of
that which philosophy can only express negatively as the denial
of the will, there would be nothing for it but to refer to that
state which all those who have attained to complete denial of
the will have experienced, and which has been variously denoted
by the names ecstasy, rapture, illumination, union with God,
and so forth; a state, however, which cannot properly be called
knowledge, because it has not the form of subject and object,
and is moreover only attainable in one's own experience and
cannot be further communicated.
We, however, who consistently occupy the standpoint of phi-
losophy, must be satisfied here with negative knowledge,-con-
tent to have reached the utmost limit of the positive. We have
recognized the inmost nature of the world as will, and all its phe-
nomena as only the objectivity of will; and we have followed
this objectivity from the unconscious working of obscure forces


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12943
of nature up to the completely conscious action of man. There-
fore we shall by no means evade the consequence, that with
the free denial, the surrender of the will, all those phenomena
are also abolished: that constant strain and effort, without end
and without rest, at all the grades of objectivity in which and
through which the world consists; the multifarious forms succeed-
ing each other in gradation; the whole manifestation of the will;
and finally also the universal forms of this manifestation, time
and space, and also its last fundamental form, subject and object,
- all are abolished. No will no idea-no world.
Before us there is certainly only nothingness. But that which
resists this passing into nothing-our nature-is indeed just
the will to live which we ourselves are, as it is our world. That
we abhor annihilation so greatly, is simply another expression
of the fact that we so strenuously will life, and are nothing but
this will, and know nothing besides it. But if we turn our glance
from our own needy and embarrassed condition to those who
have overcome the world; in whom the will, having attained to
perfect self-knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely
denied itself, and who then merely wait to see the last trace
of it vanish with the body which it animates: then instead of
the restless striving and effort, instead of the constant transition
from wish to fruition and from joy to sorrow, instead of the
never-satisfied and never-dying hope which constitutes the life
of the man who wills, we shall see that peace which is above
all reason, that perfect calm of the spirit, that deep rest, that
inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflection of which
in the countenance, as Raphael and Correggio have represented it,
is an entire and certain gospel; only knowledge remains, the will
has vanished. We look with deep and painful longing upon this
state, beside which the misery and wretchedness of our own is
brought out clearly by the contrast. Yet this is the only con-
sideration which can afford us lasting consolation, when on the
one hand we have recognized incurable suffering and endless
misery as essential to the manifestation of will, the world; and
on the other hand, see the world pass away with the abolition of
will, and retain before us only empty nothingness. Thus, in this
way, by contemplation of the life and conduct of saints, whom
it is certainly rarely granted us to meet with in our own expe-
rience, but who are brought before our eyes by their written
history, and with the stamp of inner truth, by art,- we must
-
――――――――――


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
banish the dark impression of that nothingness which we discern
behind all virtue and holiness as their final goal, and which we
fear as children fear the dark; we must not even evade it like
the Indians, through myths and meaningless words, such as re-
absorption in Brahma or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Rather
do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abo-
lition of will is, for all those who are still full of will, certainly
nothing; but conversely, to those in whom the will has turned
and has denied itself, this our world which is so real, with all its
suns and Milky Ways, is nothing.
Translation of R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp.
―――
ON BOOKS AND READING
IT
T IS in literature as in life: wherever you turn, you stumble at
once upon the incorrigible mob of humanity, swarming in all
directions, crowding and soiling everything, like flies in sum-
mer. Hence the number, which no man can count, of bad books;
those rank weeds of literature, which draw nourishment from the
corn and choke it. The time, money, and attention of the pub-
lic, which rightfully belong to good books and their noble aims,
they take for themselves: they are written for the mere pur-
pose of making money or procuring places. So they are not only
useless: they do positive mischief. Nine tenths of the whole of
our present literature has no other aim than to get a few shil-
lings out of the pockets of the public; and to this end author,
publisher, and reviewer are in league.
Let me mention a crafty and wicked trick, albeit a profita-
ble and successful one, practiced by littérateurs, hack writers, and
voluminous authors. In complete disregard of good taste and the
true culture of the period, they have succeeded in getting the
whole of the world of fashion into leading-strings, so that they
are all trained to read in time, and all the same thing,—viz. ,
the newest books; and that for the purpose of getting food for
conversation in the circles in which they move. This is the
aim served by bad novels, produced by writers who were once
celebrated, as Spindler, Bulwer-Lytton, Eugene Sue. What can
be more miserable than the lot of a reading public like this,-
always bound to peruse the latest works of extremely common-


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12945
place persons who write for money only, and who are therefore
never few in number? And for this advantage they are content
to know by name only, the works of the few superior minds of
all ages and all countries. Literary newspapers too are a singu-
larly cunning device for robbing the reading public of the time
which, if culture is to be attained, should be devoted to the gen-
uine productions of literature, instead of being occupied by the
daily bungling of commonplace persons.
ence.
Hence, in regard to reading, it is a very important thing to
be able to refrain. Skill in doing so consists in not taking into
one's hands any book merely because at the time it happens
to be extensively read,- such as political or religious pamphlets,
novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise, and may even
attain to several editions in the first and last year of their exist-
Consider, rather, that the man who writes for fools is
always sure of a large audience; be careful to limit your time
for reading, and devote it exclusively to the works of those great
minds of all times and countries who o'ertop the rest of human-
ity,- those whom the voice of fame points to as such. These
alone really educate and instruct. You can never read bad liter-
ature too little, nor good literature too much. Bad books are
intellectual poison: they destroy the mind. Because people
always read what is new instead of the best of all ages, writers
remain in the narrow circle of the ideas which happen to prevail
in their time; and so the period sinks deeper and deeper into its
own mire.
There are at all times two literatures in progress, running
side by side, but little known to each other: the one real, the
other only apparent. The former grows into permanent litera-
ture; it is pursued by those who live for science or poetry: its
course is sober and quiet, but extremely slow, and it produces
in Europe scarcely a dozen works in a century; these, however,
are permanent. The other kind is pursued by people who live
on science or poetry: it goes at a gallop, with much noise and
shouting of partisans; and every twelvemonth puts a thousand
works on the market. But after a few years one asks, Where are
they? where is the glory which came so soon and made so much
clamor? This kind may be called fleeting, and the other perma-
nent literature.
XXII-810
Translation of T. Bailey Saunders.


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12946
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
-
ON CRITICISM
HE source of all pleasure and delight is the feeling of kin-
Tship. Even with the sense of beauty, it is unquestionably
our own species in the animal world, and then again our
own race, that appears to us the fairest. So too in intercourse
with others: every man shows a decided preference for those who
resemble him; and a blockhead will find the society of another
blockhead incomparably more pleasant than that of any number
of great minds put together. Every man must necessarily take
his chief pleasure in his own work, because it is the mirror of
his own mind, the echo of his own thought; and next in order
will come the work of people like him. That is to say, a dull,
shallow, and perverse man, a dealer in mere words, will give his
sincere and hearty applause only to that which is dull, shallow,
perverse, or merely verbose: on the other hand, he will allow
merit to the work of great minds only on the score of authority,
-in other words, because he is ashamed to speak his opinion, for
in reality they give him no pleasure at all; they do not appeal
to him,- nay, they repel him: and he will not confess this even
to himself. The works of genius cannot be fully enjoyed except
by those who are themselves of the privileged order. The first
recognition of them, however, when they exist without authority
to support them, demands considerable superiority of mind.
When the reader takes all this into consideration, he should
be surprised, not that great work is so late in winning reputa-
tion, but that it wins it at all. And as a matter of fact, fame
comes only by a slow and complex process. The stupid person
is by degrees forced, and as it were tamed, into recognizing the
superiority of one who stands immediately above him; this one in
his turn bows before some one else; and so it goes on until the
weight of the votes gradually prevails over their number: and this
is just the condition of all genuine-in other words, deserved-
fame. But until then, the greatest genius, even after he has
passed his time of trial, stands like a king amidst a crowd of his
own subjects who do not know him by sight, and therefore will
not do his behests, unless indeed his chief ministers of State are
in his train.
For no subordinate official can be the direct recipi-
ent of the royal commands, as he knows only the signature of
his immediate superior; and this is repeated all the way up into
the highest ranks, where the under-secretary attests the minister's
-


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12947
signature, and the minister that of the king. There are analogous
stages to be passed before a genius can attain wide-spread fame.
This is why his reputation most easily comes to a standstill at
the very outset,- because the highest authorities, of whom there
can be but few, are most frequently not to be found; but the
further down he goes in the scale, the more numerous are those
who take the word from above, so that his fame is no more
arrested.
We must console ourselves for this state of things by reflect-
ing that it is really fortunate that the greater number of men
do not form a judgment on their own responsibility, but merely
take it on authority. For what sort of criticism should we have
on Plato and Kant, Homer, Shakespeare, and Goethe, if every
man were to form his opinion by what he really has and enjoys
of these writers, instead of being forced by authority to speak of
them in a fit and proper way, however little he may really feel
what he says? Unless something of this kind took place, it
would be impossible for true merit, in any high sphere, to attain
fame at all. At the same time, it is also fortunate that every
man has just so much critical power of his own as is necessary
for recognizing the superiority of those who are placed immedi-
ately over him, and for following their lead. This means that
the many come in the end to submit to the authority of the few;
and there results that hierarchy of critical judgments, on which
is based the possibility of a steady and eventually wide-spreading
fame.
The lowest class in the community is quite impervious to the
merits of a great genius; and for these people there is nothing
left but the monument raised to him, which, by the impression
it produces on their senses, awakens in them a dim idea of the
man's greatness.
Literary journals should be a dam against the unconscionable
scribbling of the age, and the ever-increasing deluge of bad and
useless books. Their judgments should be uncorrupted, just, and
rigorous; and every piece of bad work done by an incapable
person, every device by which the empty head tries to come to
the assistance of the empty purse, that is to say, about nine
tenths of all existing books,- should be mercilessly scourged. Lit-
erary journals would then perform their duty; which is to keep
down the craving for writing, and put a check upon the decep-
tion of the public, instead of furthering these evils by a miserable


## p. 12948 (#378) ##########################################

12948
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
toleration which plays into the hands of author and publisher,
and robs the reader of his time and his money.
If there were such a paper as I mean, every bad writer, every
brainless compiler, every plagiarist from others' books, every hol-
low and incapable place-hunter, every sham philosopher, every
vain and languishing poetaster, would shudder at the prospect
of the pillory in which his bad work would inevitably have to
stand soon after publication. This would paralyze his twitching
fingers, to the true welfare of literature; in which what is bad is
not only useless but positively pernicious. Now, most books are
bad and ought to have remained unwritten. Consequently praise
should be as rare as is now the case with blame; which is with-
held under the influence of personal considerations, coupled with
the maxim, "Accedas socius, laudes lauderis ut absens. "*
It is quite wrong to try to introduce into literature the same
toleration as must necessarily prevail in society towards those
stupid, brainless people who everywhere swarm in it. In liter-
ature such people are impudent intruders; and to disparage the
bad is here duty towards the good, for he who thinks nothing
bad will think nothing good either. Politeness, which has its
source in social relations, is in literature an alien and often in-
jurious element; because it exacts that bad work shall be called
good.
In this way the very aim of science and art is directly
frustrated.
This ideal journal could, to be sure, be written only by peo-
ple who joined incorruptible honesty with rare knowledge and
still rarer power of judgment: so that perhaps there could at the
very most be one, and even hardly one, in the whole country;
but there it would stand, like a just Areopagus, every member
of which would have to be elected by all the others. Under the
system that prevails at present, literary journals are carried on
by a clique, and secretly perhaps also by booksellers for the
good of the trade; and they are often nothing but coalitions of
bad heads to prevent the good ones succeeding. As Goethe once
remarked to me, nowhere is there so much dishonesty as in lit-
erature.
But above all, anonymity, that shield of all literary rascality,
would have to disappear. It was introduced under the pretext
of protecting the honest critic, who warned the public, against the
*"Agree as a companion, praise that when absent you may be yourself
praised. »


## p. 12949 (#379) ##########################################

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12949
resentment of the author and his friends. But where there is
one case of this sort, there will be a hundred where it merely
serves to take all responsibility from the man who cannot stand
by what he has said; or possibly to conceal the shame of one
who has been cowardly and base enough to recommend a book
to the public for the purpose of putting money into his own
pocket. Often enough it is only a cloak for covering the obscur-
ity, incompetence, and insignificance of the critic. It is incredi-
ble what impudence these fellows will show, and what literary
trickery they will venture to commit, as soon as they know they
are safe under the shadow of anonymity. Let me recommend a
general Anticriticism, a universal medicine or panacea, to put a
stop to all anonymous reviewing, whether it praises the bad or
blames the good: Rascal, your name! For a man to wrap himself
up and draw his hat over his face, and then fall upon people
who are walking about without any disguise,- this is not the part
of a gentleman: it is the part of a scoundrel and a knave.
An anonymous review has no more authority than an anony-
mous letter; and one should be received with the same mistrust
as the other. Or shall we take the name of the man who con-
sents to preside over what is, in the strict sense of the word,
une société anonyme, as a guarantee for the veracity of his col-
leagues?
«<
Even Rousseau, in the preface to the 'Nouvelle Héloïse,'
declares, "Tout honnête homme doit avouer les livres qu'il pub-
lie;" which in plain language means that every honorable man
ought to sign his articles, and that no one is honorable who does
not do so. How much truer this is of polemical writing, which
is the general character of reviews! Riemer was quite right in
the opinion he gives in his 'Reminiscences of Goethe': “An
overt enemy," he says, an enemy who meets you face to face,
is an honorable man, who will treat you fairly, and with whom
you can come to terms and be reconciled: but an enemy who
conceals himself is a base, cowardly scoundrel, who has not cour-
age enough to avow his own judgment; it is not his opinion
that he cares about, but only the secret pleasure of wreaking his
anger without being found out or punished. " This must also
have been Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source from
which Riemer drew his observations. And indeed, Rousseau's
* "Every honest man ought to acknowledge the books he publishes. "


## p. 12950 (#380) ##########################################

12950
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
maxim applies to every line that is printed. Would a man in a
mask ever be allowed to harangue a mob, or speak in any assem-
bly, and that too when he was going to attack others and over-
whelm them with abuse?
Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic ras-
cality. It is a practice which must be completely stopped.
Every article, even in a newspaper, should be accompanied by
the name of its author; and the editor should be made strictly
responsible for the accuracy of the signature. The freedom of
the press should be thus far restricted: so that what a man pub-
licly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of the news-
paper, he should be answerable for at any rate with his honor,
if he has any; and if he has none, let his name neutralize the
effect of his words. And since even the most insignificant person
is known in his own circle, the result of such a measure would
be to put an end to two thirds of the newspaper lies, and to
restrain the audacity of many a poisonous tongue.
Translation of T. Bailey Saunders.
―
ON AUTHORSHIP
THE
-
HERE are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write
for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's
sake. While the one have had thoughts or experiences
which seem to them worth communicating, the others want
money; and so they write
- for money. Their thinking is part
of the business of writing. They may be recognized by the way
in which they spin out their thoughts to the greatest possible
length; then too, by the very nature of their thoughts, which are
only half true, perverse, forced, vacillating; again, by the aversion
they generally show to saying anything straight out, so that they
may seem other than they are. Hence their writing is deficient
in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before they betray
that their only object in writing at all is to cover paper. This
sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for
example, with Lessing in his 'Dramaturgie,' and even in many
of Jean Paul's romances. As soon as the reader perceives this,
let him throw the book away; for time is precious. The truth is
that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering


## p. 12951 (#381) ##########################################

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12951
paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the
pretext that he has something to say.
Writing for money and reservation of copyright are at bot-
tom the ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth
writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.
What an inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of lit-
erature there were only a few books, but those excellent! This
can never happen as long as money is to be made by writing.
It seems
as though the money lay under a curse; for every
author degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in
any way for the sake of gain. The best works of the greatest
men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing
or for very little. And here too that Spanish proverb holds
good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found
in the same purse,-"Honra y provecho no caben en un saco.
The reason why literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is
simply and solely that people write books to make money. A
man who is in want sits down and writes a book, and the public
is stupid enough to buy it. The secondary effect of this is the
ruin of language.
>>
T
A great many bad writers make their whole living by that
foolish mania of the public for reading nothing but what has just
been printed,—journalists, I mean. Truly, a most appropriate
In plain language it is journeymen, day-laborers!
name.
Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors.
First come those who write without thinking. They write from
a full memory, from reminiscences; it may be, even straight
out of other people's books. This class is the most numerous.
Then come those who do their thinking whilst they are writing,—
they think in order to write; and there is no lack of them. Last
of all come those authors who think before they begin to write:
they are rare.
Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until
they come to write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at ran-
dom and is not likely to bring very much home. On the other
hand, when an author of the third or rare class writes, it is like
a battue. Here the game has been previously captured and shut
up within a very small space; from which it is afterwards let
out, so many at a time, into another space, also confined. The
game cannot possibly escape the sportsman; he has nothing to
do but aim and fire,- in other words, write down his thoughts.


## p. 12952 (#382) ##########################################

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12952
This is a kind of sport from which a man has something to
show.
But even though the number of those who really think seri-
ously before they begin to write is small, extremely few of them
think about the subject itself: the remainder think only about
the books that have been written on the subject, and what has
been said by others. In order to think at all, such writers need
the more direct and powerful stimulus of having other people's
thoughts before them. These become their immediate theme;
and the result is that they are always under their influence, and
so never, in any real sense of the word, original. But the former
are roused to thought by the subject itself, to which their think-
ing is thus immediately directed. This is the only class that
produces writers of abiding fame.
It must of course be understood that I am speaking here of
writers who treat of great subjects; not of writers on the art of
making brandy.
Unless an author takes the material on which he writes out of
his own head,- that is to say, from his own observation,— he is
not worth reading. Book manufacturers, compilers, the common
run of history writers, and many others of the same class, take
their material immediately out of books; and the material goes
straight to their finger-tips without even paying freight or under-
going examination as it passes through their heads, to say noth-
ing of elaboration or revision. How very learned many a man
would be if he knew everything that was in his own books! The
consequence of this is, that these writers talk in such a loose
and vague manner that the reader puzzles his brains in vain to
understand what it is of which they are really thinking. They
are thinking of nothing. It may now and then be the case that
the book from which they copy has been composed exactly in the
same way; so that writing of this sort is like a plaster cast of a
cast, and in the end the bare outline of the face- and that too
hardly recognizable—is all that is left of your Antinoüs. Let
compilations be read as seldom as possible. It is difficult to
avoid them altogether, since compilations also include those text-
books which contain in a small space the accumulated knowledge
of centuries.
There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the last
work is always the more correct; that what is written later on is
in every case an improvement on what was written before; and


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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12953
that change always means progress. Real thinkers, men of right
judgment, people who are in earnest with their subject, these
are all exceptions only. Vermin is the rule everywhere in the
world: it is always on the alert, taking the mature opinions of
the thinkers, and industriously seeking to improve upon them
(save the mark! ) in its own peculiar way.
If the reader wishes to study any subject, let him beware of
rushing to the newest books upon it, and confining his attention.
to them alone, under the notion that science is always advancing,
and that the old books have been drawn upon in the writing of
the new. They have been drawn upon, it is true; but how? The
writer of the new book often does not understand the old books
thoroughly, and yet he is unwilling to take their exact words; so
he bungles them, and says in his own bad way that which has
been said very much better and more clearly by the old writers
who wrote from their own lively knowledge of the subject. The
new writer frequently omits the best things they say, their most
striking illustrations, their happiest remarks, because he does not
see their value or feel how pregnant they are. The only thing
that appeals to him is what is shallow and insipid.
Translation of T. Bailey Saunders.
THE ALUE OF PERSONALITY
―――
A
RISTOTLE divides the blessings of life into three classes: those
which come to us from without, those of the soul, and those
of the body. Keeping nothing of this division but the num-
ber, I observe that the fundamental differences in human lot may
be reduced to three distinct classes:
(1) What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest
sense of the word; under which are included health, strength,
beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education.
(2) What a man has: that is, property and possessions of
every kind.
(3) How a man stands in the estimation of others: by which
is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the
eyes of his fellow-men,- or more strictly, the light in which they
regard him. This is shown by their opinion of him; and their


## p. 12954 (#384) ##########################################

12954
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
opinion is in its turn manifested by the honor in which he is
held, and by his rank and reputation.
The differences which come under the first head are those
which nature herself has set between man and man; and from
this fact alone we may at once infer that they influence the hap-
piness or unhappiness of mankind in a much more vital and
radical way than those contained under the two following heads,
which are merely the effect of human arrangements. Compared
with genuine personal advantages, such as a great mind or a
great heart, all the privileges of rank or birth, even of royal birth,
are but as kings on the stage to kings in real life. The same
thing was said long ago by Metrodorus, the earliest disciple
of Epicurus, who wrote as the title of one of his chapters, "The
happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which
we obtain from our surroundings. " And it is an obvious fact,
which cannot be called in question, that the principal element
in a man's well-being- indeed, in the whole tenor of his exist-
ence is what he is made of, his inner constitution. For this
is the immediate source of that inward satisfaction or dissatis-
faction resulting from the sum total of his sensations, desires, and
thoughts; whilst his surroundings, on the other hand, exert only
a mediate or indirect influence upon him. This is why the same
external events or circumstances affect no two people alike:
even with perfectly similar surroundings, every one lives in a
world of his own. For a man has immediate apprehension only
of his own ideas, feelings, and volitions; the outer world can
influence him only in so far as it brings these to life. The world
in which a man lives, shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he
looks at it, and so it proves different to different men: to one it is
barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and full
of meaning. On hearing of the interesting events which have
happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will
wish that similar things had happened in their lives too; com-
pletely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental
aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess
when he describes them: to a man of genius they were interest-
ing adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary indi-
vidual they would have been stale, every-day occurrences. This
is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe's and
Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts;


## p. 12955 (#385) ##########################################

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
12955
where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so
many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that
mighty power of fantasy which was capable of turning a fairly
common experience into something so great and beautiful.
In the same way, a person of melancholy temperament will
make a scene in a tragedy out of what appears to the sanguine
man only in the light of an interesting conflict, and to a phleg-
matic soul as something without any meaning; - all of which
rests upon the fact that every event, in order to be realized and
appreciated, requires the co-operation of two factors,- namely, a
subject and an object; although these are as closely and neces-
sarily connected as oxygen and hydrogen in water. When there-
fore the objective or external factor in an experience is actually
the same, but the subjective or personal appreciation of it varies,
the event is just as much a different one in the eyes of differ-
ent persons as if the objective factors had not been alike; for
to a blunt intelligence the fairest and best object in the world
presents only a poor reality, and is therefore only poorly appre-
ciated,—like a fine landscape in dull weather, or in the reflection
of a bad camera oscura. In plain language, every man is pent
up within the limits of his own consciousness, and cannot directly
get beyond those limits any more than he can get beyond his
own skin; so external aid is not of much use to him. On the
stage, one man is a prince, another a minister, a third a servant
or a soldier or a general, and so on,- mere external differences:
the inner reality, the kernel of all these appearances, is the same,
a poor player, with all the anxieties of his lot. In life it is
just the same. Differences of rank and wealth give every man
his part to play, but this by no means implies a difference of
inward happiness and pleasure; here too there is the same being
in all, a poor mortal, with his hardships and troubles. Though
these may, indeed, in every case proceed from dissimilar causes,
they are in their essential nature much the same in all their
forms; with degrees of intensity which vary, no doubt, but in no
wise correspond to the part a man has to play,-to the pres-
ence or absence of position and wealth. Since everything which
exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness, and
happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the
constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more
important than the circumstances which go to form its contents.
All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull
-


## p. 12956 (#386) ##########################################

12956
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
consciousness of a fool, is poor indeed compared with the imagi-
nation of Cervantes writing his 'Don Quixote' in a miserable
prison. The objective half of life and reality is in the hand of
fate, and accordingly takes various forms in different cases; the
subjective half is ourself, and in essentials it always remains the
same.
Hence the life of every man is stamped with the same char-
acter throughout, however much his external circumstances may
alter: it is like a series of variations on a single theme. No one
can get beyond his own individuality. An animal, under what-
ever circumstances it is placed, remains within the narrow limits
to which nature has irrevocably consigned it; so that our endeav
ors to make a pet happy must always keep within the compass of
its nature, and be restricted to what it can feel. So it is with
man: the measure of the happiness he can attain is determined
beforehand by his individuality. More especially is this the case
with the mental powers, which fix once for all his capacity for
the higher kinds of pleasure. If these powers are small, no efforts
from without, nothing that his fellow-men or that fortune can do
for him, will suffice to raise him above the ordinary degree of
human happiness and pleasure, half animal though it be: his only
resources are his sensual appetite,- a cozy and cheerful family
life at the most, low company and vulgar pastime; even education,
on the whole, can avail little if anything for the enlargement of
his horizon. For the highest, most varied, and lasting pleasures
are those of the mind, however much our youth may deceive us
on this point; and the pleasures of the mind turn chiefly on the
powers of the mind. It is clear, then, that our happiness depends
in a great degree upon what we are, upon our individuality;
whilst lot or destiny is generally taken to mean only what we
have, or our reputation. Our lot, in this sense, may improve; but
we do not ask much of it if we are inwardly rich: on the other
hand, a fool remains a fool, a dull blockhead, to his last hour,
even though he were surrounded by houris in Paradise. This is
why Goethe, in the West-östlicher Divan,' says that every man,
whether he occupy a low position in life or emerge as its victor,
testifies to personality as the greatest factor in happiness.
Translation of T. Bailey Saunders.


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OLIVE SCHREINER
(1863-)
N THE Summer of 1883 a little unheralded book, by an un-
known author, appeared in the rank and file of contempo-
rary fiction. Its title, The Story of an African Farm,'
arrested attention, for the ostrich farm of South Africa was then
virgin soil; not only virgin in its solemn monotony of unbroken
plain and fierce sunlight, but virgin in its traditions and its customs.
The most cursory glance at the first chapter was enough to show
the author of The Story of an African Farm' to be a virile and
dramatic genius, independent of her choice
of setting. Two facts, somewhat disguised
(for the book was written under the pen-
name of "Ralph Iron," and incident and
character were treated with masculine bold-
ness), betrayed to the omniscient critic that
the writer was a woman and young. Miss
Schreiner has a remarkable intuition regard-
ing the thoughts and feelings of men; but
she reveals her sex by her profound pre-
occupation with the problem of its relation
to the world. Moreover, only a girlish Am-
azon of the pen could have written a story
so harsh and hopeless. Only to eyes of
youthful intolerance could compromise and
extenuation (qualities rich in the temperance which Hamlet loved)
have been so immeasurably remote.
The girl author, it is plain, was enamored with the bottom of
things; she had made straight for the central mysteries of life and
faith, and looked, unblinking, at naked truths that wrest the soul.
So far and no farther, however, do age and sex affect the story.
There is none of the negligent superiority to the received dictums of
style, in which her literary kinswoman, Emily Bronté, expressed the
conventionally impossible. In strong, brief words and telling phrase
the tale is told. A few bold, masterly strokes-as though from very
familiarity she had wearied of local color, or disdained to use it-
indicate the hueless, treeless, monotonous landscape of the ostrich
farm, the grotesque, terrible caricature of deity that broods over it,

OLIVE SCHREINER


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OLIVE SCHREINER
and the strange, vulgar, elementary people who live there. These she
draws with bitter and cynical humor, sparing nothing of coarseness
or repulsiveness in the broad, high-light portraits. The rose has scent
and thorn, but she takes the thorn; and line by line sets down the
mean, ugly life, its commonplaceness, its gross content. Walsingham
wrote, "Her Majesty counts much on fortune, I wish she would trust
more to the Almighty;" and as we read this young girl's story, we
feel her to be another Elizabeth. The horoscope of her characters
once cast, they have no more power to divert it than to reverse the
laws of gravitation.
To three unhappy beings- unhappy because they are of finer
mold, physically and mentally, than the rest-she commits the task
of showing the relentlessness of fate. The boy Waldo worships the
fetish he has been taught to call God, and pours out his whole inno-
cent, ignorant soul into its deaf ear; the little English girl, Em,
begs for love; the beautiful, proud child Lyndall asks only for
freedom to experience-to know. They beat their wings against
the bars and fall back, the one despairing, the other rebellious,
the third exhausted; but all fall back on the dull animal existence,
wounded unto death.
-
Only at the last does a certain drowsy calm rest on their tired
eyelids. In the author's hopeless creed there is a single sweet nar-
cotic for the soul's unrest. "Come," she says, "to Nature, the great
healer, the celestial surgeon, who, before quenching forever conscious
identity, will, if thou wilt, fold thee in her kind arms. "
The dramatic power of 'The Story of an African Farm' takes
hold of the reader from the first chapter-when the African moon
pours its light from the blue sky to the wide lonely plain, and the
boy Waldo cries out in agony, "O God, save thy people, save a few
of thy people"-to the sculpturesque scene where the dying Lyn-
dall fights her last fight, inch by inch, along the weary road. In her
gospel, ardor and hope are put to shame, and all men are equal only
in the pity of their limitations and the terror of their doom. The
austere young dramatist fights a dark and sinister world with incal-
culable and unclassified energy.
A period of characteristic silence followed the immense popular
success of The Story of an African Farm. ' In 1890 the curiously
effective but unequal 'Dreams' appeared; and in 1893 'Dream Life
and Real Life,' a little African story, whose theme was the self-
sacrifice, the martyrdom, the aspirations of woman. Trooper Peter
Halket' was published in 1897. More than an exercise in polemics,
it is a scornful presentment of the policy and methods of the Char-
tered Company in South Africa. The experiment of writing a mod-
ern gospel is ambitious work, even for so bold and original a writer


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OLIVE SCHREINER
12959
as Olive Schreiner: but it must be conceded that she has blended
the baldest realism and the ideal and the supernatural with such
powerful dramatic handling, that the struggle between the forces
of good and evil, between Christian obligation and the way of the
world, becomes an absorbing, exciting conflict; while the tragedy
of the end, the old hopelessness that bounded and pervaded The
Story of an African Farm,' is its most pathetic episode. The author
of these remarkable books is as artistic in construction as she is
strong in dramatic power.
Olive Schreiner was born in 1863 in Cape Town, Africa. She
was the daughter of a Lutheran minister, and at twenty years of
age published her first book. In 1890 she married Mr. Cronwright,
an Anglo-African resident of her native colony.
SHADOWS FROM CHILD LIFE
From the Story of an African Farm›
THE WATCH
THE
HE full African moon poured down its light from the blue
sky into the wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy earth,
with its coating of stunted "karroo" bushes a few inches
high, the low hills that skirted the plain, the milk-bushes with
their long finger-like leaves, all were touched by a weird and
an almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the white light.
In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain
broken. Near the centre a small solitary "kopje " rose. Alone
it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon another,
as over some giant's grave. Here and there a few tufts of
grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among its stones;
and on the very summit a clump of prickly pears lifted thei
thorny arms, and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on
their broad fleshy leaves. At the foot of the "kopje" lay the
homestead. First, the stone-walled sheep kraals and Kaffir huts;
beyond them the dwelling-house,-a square red brick building
with thatched roof. Even on its bare red walls, and the wooden
ladder that led up to the loft, the moonlight cast a kind of
dreamy beauty; and quite etherealized the low brick wall that
ran before the house, and which inclosed a bare patch of sand
and two straggling sunflowers. On the zinc roof of the great


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OLIVE SCHREINER
open wagon-house, on the roofs of the outbuildings that jutted
from its side, the moonlight glinted with a quite peculiar bright-
ness, till it seemed that every rib in the metal was of burnished
silver.