_Groundless assumptions_.--"Based on nothing," because they seem to derive from common assumption of the reasonableness of human existence, which assumption surely is the child of our desires, and probably a bastard at that..... In his _Miserly Knight_ Poushkin represented a miser as a romantic figure. Gogol, with his Plyushkin, creates on the contrary a repulsive figure of a miser. Gogol was nearer to reality. A miser is ugly, whatever view you take of him--inward or outward. Yet Gogol ought not to teach people to preserve in their age the ideals of their youth. Once old age is upon us--it must not be improved upon, much less apologised for. It must be accepted, and its essence brought to light. Plyushkin, the vulgar, dirty maniac is disgusting--but who knows? perhaps he is fulfilling the serious mission of his own being. He is possessed by one desire--to everything else, to all happenings in the outer world he is indifferent. It is the same to him whether he is hungry or full, warm or cold, clean or dirty. Practically no event can distract his attention from his single purpose. He is disinterestedly mean, if one may say so. He has no need for his riches. He lets them rot in a disgusting heap, and does not dream, like Poushkin's knight, of palaces and power, or of sportive nymphs. Upon what end is he concentrated? No one has the time to think it out. At the sight of Plyushkin everyone recalls the damage the miser has done. Everyone of course is right: Plyushkins, who heap up fortunes to let them rot, are very harmful. The social judgment is nearly always to the point. But not quite always. It won't hurt morals and social considerations if at times they have to hold their tongue--and at such times we might succeed in guessing the riddle of meanness, sordidness, old age. 86 We have sufficient grounds for taking life mistrustfully: it has defrauded us so often of our cherished expectations. But we have still stronger grounds for mistrusting reason: since if life deceived us, it was only because futile reason let herself be deceived. Perhaps reason herself invented the deception, and then to serve her own ambitious ends, threw the blame on life, so that life shall appear sick-headed. But if we have to choose between life and reason, we choose life, and then we no longer need try to foresee and to explain, we can wait, and accept all that is unalterable as part of the game. And thus Nietzsche, having realised that all his hopes had gradually crumbled, and that he could never get back to his former strength, but must grow worse and worse every day, wrote in a private letter of May 28, 1883: "_Ich will es so schwer haben, wie nur irgend ein Mensch es hat; erst writer diesem Drucke gewinne ich das gute Gewissen dafür, etwas zu besitzen, das wenige Menschen haben und gehabt haben: Flügel, um im Gleichnisse zu reden_." In these few simple words lies the key to the philosophy of Nietzsche. 87