The sun., 1908-11-29

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In Nietzsoheis books are significant:
There is q vibrating accent Of personal
sorrow on every page. He lived In an
inferno, mental and physical. We are
given to praising Robert Louis Stevenson
for bis oheerfulneCs In the dire straits OF
his illness. He was q mere amateur OF
misery In comparison with NletSsche.
And how cruel was the German poet "
himself. He tied his soul TO q stake END
recorded the poignant sensations OF his
spiritual auto-da-f8. At the close OF MS
sane days we find him taking aolorous
pride In his capacity for suffering. 1t
Is great affiiotion only-that long, slow
afliotion In which We are burned as 1t
were with green wood, which takes time
that compels US philosophers to descend
into our ultimate depth and divert our
selves Of all trust, all good nature. gloss
ing, gentleness. Idoubt whether
such afliotion improves us; but know
that 1t deepens US. oh, how
repugnant to one henceforth La gratifioa-
uon, coarse. dull. drab oolored gratifica-
tion, as usually understood by those who
enjoy life I" Profound suffering
makes noble; 1t separates.
There are free. insolent minds that would
fain conceal and deny that at the bottom
they are dlsjointed, incurable souls
1t Is the case with Hamlet.' Nietzsche
had the morbidly interpretive Hamtet
temper. and Pascal has been called the
Christian Hamlet.
We read in overbecks 3 reoollections
that ,Nietzsche manifested deep interest
in the personality OF Pascal. Both hated
hypocrisy. Hut the German thinker saw
In the French man OF genius Christian
who hugged his chains, one who for his
faith suffered "a continuous suicide of
reason" HAS not Nietzsche himself also
said hard things about Reason?) @One Is
punished best by ones virtues - or.
'He who flghts with monsters, let him be
careful lest he thereby become a monster.
And II thou gaze long into an abyss the
abyss will also gaze into thee This
last is unquestionably a reminiscence of
Pascal, He could not endure with euua-
nimity Pasoal's sdcdfzio delP intelleho,
not realizing that the Frenchman felt
beneath his feet the solid earth Of faith.
He disoerned the puritan in Pascal though
failing TO recognize the puritan in himself.
Despite his praise Of the Dlonysian ele-
ment In art and life a puritan was buried
in tho nerves OF Nietzsohe. He never
could tolerate the common bourgeois joys
OF life. Wine, woman, song and their
champions were his detestations. He
hated puritanism In Protestant Chris
tianity. -The dangerous thrill Of re-
pentance spasms, the vivisection Of con-
he contemns; even in every
desire for knowledge there is a drop Of
cruelty He wrote to Brandes "Physi-
cally, too. lived for years in the neigh
borhood Of death. That was my great
piece of good fortune: forgot myself.
l outlived myself shedding Of the skin"
Pascal also knew the sting of the flesh and
brain. From the time he had an escape
from sudden death he was conscious of
an abyss at his side. Men of genius. he
wrote, have their heads higher but their
feet lower than the rest Of US With
Nietzsche there was darker nuance of
pain; he speaks somewhere Of @the philtre
of the great Circe OF mingled pleasure and
cruelty His soul was mysterious
palimpsest which it would be wise not TO
dccipher.
The heart has its reasons. cried Pascal:
OF Nietysche's heart the last word has not
been written; not even when his "Ecce
Homo" lie given to the world shall we
sound its abysses.
His criticism of Pascal was not element.
He said: aIn Goethe the superabund-
ance becomes creative, in Flaubert the
hatred; Flaubert new edition of Pas
cal. but as an artist with instructive
judgment at bottom. He tor
as Pascal tortured himself when he
thought Yes, but Metz
sche was as fierce a hater as Pascal or
Flaubert, He set up for Christianity
a straw adversary and proceeded to de-
molish it. He forgot that. as Francis
Thompson has it: 1T is the severed
head that makes the Seraph.' Nietzsche
would not look higher than the muddy
pedestal. He. poor sufferer, was not
genuinely impersonal. His tragedy was
his sick soul and body. IF man cannot
sing as he carries his cross he had better
drop it. advises Havelock Ellis. Metz
sche bore a terrible cross--like the men
staggering with chimeras in Baude-
laire's poem-but he did not bear 1t with
We must not be deceived
by his desperate gayety. As a married
man he could never have endured as did
John Stuart Mill his spiritual henpeok-
cry. He was afraid Of life, this dazzling
who went on Icarus wings |
30 close to the sun. He could speak of
women thus; I'VE think wo nan deep
why2 Because we never find any founda-
ton in her. Woman IL not even shallow"
Or, woman would like to believe that
love oan do all-it is a superstition pecu-
liar to herself. Alas! he who knows the
heart finds out how poor. helpless, pre-
tentious and liable to error even the best, |
the deepest love is-how It rather destroys
than saves
Der Dichter sprichi Also the bachelor,
Once a, Hilda Of the younger generation,
Lou Salome by name. came knocking
1t the door OF the poets heart. It was in
vain. The wings Of great happiness
touched his brow as it passed. No won-
der he wrote: @The desert grows; woe to
him who hides deserts; woman un-
learns the fear Of man; 'Thou goest to
Remember thy whip ALWAYS
this resounding motive Of cruelty.) "Thy |
soul will be dead even sooner than thy |
body; -0nce spirit became God; then it |
became man; and now it is becoming |
mob; 'And many one who went into !
The desert and suffered thirst with the |
=. .,.zt. xaaroIx, ~, rr1 ,,1t a. II.