"But, Lou, what letters yours are! A little angry schoolgirl writes in this way. What have I got to do with these bickerings? Understand me: I wish you to rise in my opinion; not to sink again. "I only reproach you for this: you ought to have sooner given an account of what I expected from you. At Lucerne I gave you my essay on Schopenhauer--I told you that my views were essentially there, and that I believed that they would also be yours. Then you should have read and said: No (in such matters I hate all _superficiality_). You would have spared me much! Your poem, 'Sorrow,' written by you, is a profound counter-truth. "I believe that no one thinks more good things of you than I do, or more bad. Do not defend yourself: I have already defended you, to myself and to others, better than you could do it. Creatures like you are only bearable to others when they have a _lofty object_. "How poor you are in veneration, in gratitude, in piety, in courtesy, in admiration, in delicacy--I do not speak of higher things. How would you answer if I asked you: Are you brave? Are you incapable of treason? "Do you not then feel that when a man like myself approaches you, he needs to constrain himself very greatly? You have had to do with one of the most for-bearing and benevolent of men possible: but against petty egoism and little weaknesses, my argument, know it well, is _disgust._ No one is so easily conquered by disgust as I. I have not deceived myself again on any point whatsoever; I saw in you that holy egoism which forces us to serve what is highest in us. I do not know by what sorcery's aid you have exchanged it for its contrary, the egoism of the cat, which only desires life. "Farewell, dear Lou, I shall not see you again. Protect your soul from like deeds, and succeed better with others in regard to things that, so far as I am concerned, are irreparable. "I have not read your letter to the end, but I have read too much of it. Your, "F. N." Friedrich Nietzsche left Leipsic. [1] This formula is given in the _Wille zur Macht,_ paragraph 286.