As I should very much like to have an idea of your appearance, _I beg you to give me a portrait of yourself_. I enclose my last photograph. I would also ask you to tell me quite briefly when and where you were born and in what years you published (or better, wrote) your works, as they are not dated. If you have any newspaper that contains these details, there will be no need to write. I am an unmethodical person and possess neither dictionaries of authors nor other books of reference in which your name might be found. The youthful works--the _Thoughts out of Season_--have been very useful to me. How young you were and enthusiastic, how frank and naïve I There is much in the maturer books that I do not yet understand; you appear to me often to hint at or generalise about entirely intimate, personal data, giving the reader a beautiful casket without the key. But most of it I understand. I was enchanted by the youthful work on Schopenhauer; although personally I owe little to Schopenhauer, it seemed to speak to me from the soul. One or two pedantic corrections: _Joyful Wisdom_, p. 116. The words quoted are not Chamfort's last, they are to be found in his _Caractères et Anecdotes_: dialogue between M. D. and M. L. in explanation of the sentence: _Peu de personnes et pen de choses m'intéressent, mais rien ne m'intéresse moins que moi_. The concluding words are: en vivant et _en voyant les hommes, il faut que le cour se brise ou se bronze_. On p. 118 you speak of the elevation "in which Shakespeare places Cæsar." I find Shakespeare's Cæsar pitiable. An act of high treason. And this glorification of the miserable fellow whose only achievement was to plunge a knife into a great man! _Human, all-too-Human_, II, p. 59. A holy lie. "It is the only holy lie that has become famous." No, Desdemona's last words are perhaps still more beautiful and just as famous, often quoted in Germany at the time when Jacobi was writing on Lessing. Am I not right? These trifles are only to show you that I read you attentively. Of course, there are very different matters that I might discuss with you, but a letter is not the place for them. If you read Danish, I should like to send you a handsomely got-up little book on Holberg, which will appear in a week. Let me know whether you understand our language. If you read Swedish, I call your attention to Sweden's only genius, August Strindberg. When you write about women you are very like him. I hope you will have nothing but good to tell me of your eyes. Yours sincerely, GEORGE BRANDES. 10. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES. _Torino (Italia) ferma in posta_, April 10, 1888.