Thoughts out of Season, Part I: David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer - Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
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Thoughts out of Season, Part I: David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer - Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Strauss, David Friedrich, 1808-1874; Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883
"Here is our man!" cries the Philistine exultingly, who reads this:
"for this is exactly how we live; it is indeed our daily life."[3]
And how perfectly he understands the euphemism! When, for example, he
refers to the historical studies by means of which we help ourselves
in forming just conclusions regarding the political situation, what
can he be thinking of, if it be not our newspaper-reading? When he
speaks of the active part we take in the reconstruction of the German
State, he surely has only our daily visits to the beer-garden in his
mind; and is not a walk in the Zoological Gardens implied by 'the
sources of information through which we endeavour to enlarge our
knowledge of the natural sciences'? Finally, the theatres and
concert-halls are referred to as places from which we take home 'a
stimulus for wit and imagination which leaves nothing to be
desired.'--With what dignity and wit he describes even the most
suspicious of our doings! Here indeed is our man; for his heaven is
our heaven!"
[3] This alludes to a German student-song.
Thus cries the Philistine; and if we are not quite so satisfied as he,
it is merely owing to the fact that we wanted to know more. Scaliger
used to say: "What does it matter to us whether Montaigne drank red or
white wine?" But, in this more important case, how greatly ought we to
value definite particulars of this sort! If we could but learn how
many pipes the Philistine smokes daily, according to the prescriptions
of the new faith, and whether it is the _Spener_ or the _National Gazette_
that appeals to him over his coffee! But our curiosity is not
satisfied. With regard to one point only do we receive more exhaustive
information, and fortunately this point relates to the heaven in
heaven--the private little art-rooms which will be consecrated to the
use of great poets and musicians, and to which the Philistine will go
to edify himself; in which, moreover, according to his own showing, he
will even get "all his stains removed and wiped away" (p. 433); so
that we are led to regard these private little art-rooms as a kind of
bath-rooms. "But this is only effected for some fleeting moments; it
happens and counts only in the realms of phantasy; as soon as we
return to rude reality, and the cramping confines of actual life, we
are again on all sides assailed by the old cares,"--thus our Master
sighs. Let us, however, avail ourselves of the fleeting moments during
which we remain in those little rooms; there is just sufficient time
to get a glimpse of the apotheosis of the Philistine--that is to say,
the Philistine whose stains have been removed and wiped away, and who
is now an absolutely pure sample of his type. In truth, the
opportunity we have here may prove instructive: let no one who happens
to have fallen a victim to the confession-book lay it aside before
having read the two appendices, "Of our Great Poets" and "Of our Great
Musicians." Here the rainbow of the new brotherhood is set, and he who
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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