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52.
Wagner reminds one of lava which blocks its own course by congealing, and suddenly finds[Pg 98] itself checked by dams which it has itself built. There is no Allegro con fuoco for him.
53.
I compare Wagner's music, which would fain have the same effect as speech, with that kind of sculptural relief which would have the same effect as painting. The highest laws of style are violated, and that which is most sublime can no longer be achieved.
54.
The general heaving, undulating and rolling of Wagner's art.
55.
In regard to Wagner's rejection of form, we are reminded of Goethe's remark in conversation with Eckermann: "there is no great art in being brilliant if one respects nothing."
56.
Once one theme is over, Wagner is always embarrassed as to how to continue. Hence the long preparation, the suspense. His peculiar craftiness consisted in transvaluing his weakness into virtues.—
57.
The lack of melody and the poverty of melody in Wagner. Melody is a whole consisting of many beautiful proportions, it is the reflection of a well-ordered soul. He strives after melody; but if he finds one, he almost suffocates it in his embrace.
58.
The natural nobility of a Bach and a Beethoven, the beautiful soul (even of a Mendelssohn) are wanting in Wagner. He is one degree lower.
59.
Wagner imitates himself again and again—mannerisms. That is why he was the quickest among musicians to be imitated. It is so easy.
60.
Mendelssohn who lacked the power of radically staggering one (incidentally this was the talent of the Jews in the Old Testament), makes up for this by the things which were his own, that is to say: freedom within the law, and noble emotions kept within the limits of beauty.
61.
Liszt, the first representative of all musicians, but no musician. He was the prince, not the statesman. The conglomerate of a hundred musicians' souls, but not enough of a personality to cast his own shadow upon them.
62.
The most wholesome phenomenon is Brahms, in whose music there is more German blood than in that of Wagner's. With these words I would say something complimentary, but by no means wholly so.[Pg 100] 63.
In Wagner's writings there is no greatness or peace, but presumption. Why?
64.
Wagner's Style.— The habit he acquired, from his earliest days, of having his say in the most important matters without a sufficient knowledge of them, has rendered him the obscure and incomprehensible writer that he is. In addition to this he aspired to imitating the witty newspaper article, and finally acquired that presumption which readily joins hands with carelessness: "and, behold, it was very good."
65.
I am alarmed at the thought of how much pleasure I could find in Wagner's style, which is so careless as to be unworthy of such an artist.
66.
In Wagner, as in Brahms, there is a blind denial of the healthy, in his followers this denial is deliberate and conscious.
67.
Wagner's art is for those who are conscious of an essential blunder in the conduct of their lives. They feel either that they have checked a great nature by a base occupation, or squandered it through idle pursuits, a conventional marriage, &c. &c.
In this quarter the condemnation of the world is the outcome of the condemnation of the ego.
68.
Wagnerites do not wish to alter themselves in any way; they live discontentedly in insipid, conventional and brutal circumstances—only at intervals does art have to raise them as by magic above these things. Weakness of will.
69.
Wagner's art is for scholars who do not dare to become philosophers: they feel discontented with themselves and are generally in a state of obtuse stupefaction—from time to time they take a bath in the opposite conditions.
70.
I feel as if I had recovered from an illness: with a feeling of unutterable joy I think of Mozart's Requiem. I can once more enjoy simple fare.
71.
I understand Sophocles' development through and through—it was the repugnance to pomp and pageantry.
72.
I gained an insight into the injustice of idealism, by noticing that I avenged myself on Wagner for the disappointed hopes I had cherished of him.
73.
I leave my loftiest duty to the end, and that is to thank Wagner and Schopenhauer publicly, and[Pg 102] to make them as it were take sides against themselves.
74.
I counsel everybody not to fight shy of such paths (Wagner and Schopenhauer). The wholly unphilosophic feeling of remorse, has become quite strange to me.
Wagner's Effects.
75.
We must strive to oppose the false after-effects of Wagner's art. If he, in order to create Parsifal, is forced to pump fresh strength from religious sources, this is not an example but a danger.
76.
I entertain the fear that the effects of Wagner's art will ultimately pour into that torrent which takes its rise on the other side of the mountains, and which knows how to flow even over mountains.[3]
[3] It should be noted that the German Catholic party is called the Ultramontane Party. The river which can thus flow over mountains is Catholicism, towards which Nietzsche thought Wagner's art to be tending.—TR.
AUTHOR OF "THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE,"
"RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
OF THE EAST," &.
The mussel is crooked inside and rough outside: it is only when we hear its deep note after blowing into it that we can begin to esteem it at its true value.—(Ind. Sprche, ed. Bthlingk, i. 335.)
An ugly-looking wind instrument: but we must first blow into it.
The subject of education was one to which Nietzsche, especially during his residence in Basel, paid considerable attention; and his insight into it was very much deeper than that of, say, Herbert Spencer or even Johann Friedrich Herbart, the latter of whom has in late years exercised considerable influence in scholastic circles. Nietzsche clearly saw that the "philologists" (using the word chiefly in reference to the teachers of the classics in German colleges and universities) were absolutely unfitted for their high task, since they were one and all incapable of entering into the spirit of antiquity. Although at the first reading, therefore, this book may seem to be rather fragmentary, there are two main lines of thought running through it: an incisive criticism of German professors, and a number of constructive ideas as to what classical culture really should be.
