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 Nietzsche’s Human,
All Too Human

6215_Abbey.indd i 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche
Series editors: Keith Ansell-Pearson and Daniel Conway

Guides you through the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), one of modernity’s
most independent, original and seminal minds

The Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche series brings Nietzsche’s writings

to life for students, teachers and scholars alike, with each text benefitting from
its own dedicated book. Every guide features new research and reflects the
most recent developments in Nietzsche scholarship. The authors unlock each
work’s intricate structure, explore its specific mode of presentation and explain
its seminal importance. Whether you are working in contemporary philosophy,
political theory, religious studies, psychology, psychoanalysis or literary theory,
these guides will help you to fully appreciate Nietzsche’s enduring significance
for contemporary thought.

Books in the series

Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, Tracy B. Strong and
Babette Babich
Nietzsche’s Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Sean Kirkland
Nietzsche’s Unfashionable Observations, Jeffrey Church
Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human, Ruth Abbey
Nietzsche’s Dawn, Katrina Mitcheson
Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, Robert Miner
Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Charles Bambach
Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Daniel Conway
Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, Robert Guay
Nietzsche’s The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Ryan Harvey and
Aaron Ridley
Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, Vanessa Lemm
Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ, Paul Bishop
Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, Matthew Meyer
Nietzsche’s Late Notebooks, Alan Schrift

Visit our website at edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-edinburgh-critical-

guides-to-nietzsche to find out more

6215_Abbey.indd ii 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 Nietzsche’s Human,
All Too Human

A Critical Introduction
and Guide

Ruth Abbey

6215_Abbey.indd iii 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in
the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject
areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge
scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic
works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website:
edinburghuniversitypress.com

© Ruth Abbey, 2020

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

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Typeset in 11/13 Bembo by

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ISBN 978 1 4744 3081 4 (hardback)

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The right of Ruth Abbey to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

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 Contents

Acknowledgements viii
Chronology ix
Abbreviations xii

Introduction 1
Style 3
Enlightenment 6
Epistemology-plus 13
Structure 14
Chapter summary 16
1. Of First and Last Things 21
Historical philosophy 21
Epistemology-plus 25
Impediments to truth 28
Free spirits 32
Conclusion 34
2. On the History of the Moral Sensations 36
The origins of morality 37
Psychology 42
The historical and the psychological 46
The ego and its own 47
Regarding others 50
Free will 53

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 vi CONTENTS

3. The Religious Life 58

A scientific view of religion 58
Christianity 61
Paragons of Christianity 65
Beyond Christianity 65
4. From the Souls of Artists and Writers 69
Who and what? 69
Art and science 71
The genius 73
5. Signs of Higher and Lower Culture 80
Conservatism and change 81
Free spirits 83
Ingenious 85
Contours of higher culture 88
6. The Human in Society 98
The French moralists 99
Amour-propre 101
Unsocial sociability 104
Friendship 107
7. Woman and Child 110
The female intellect 111
Courtship and marriage 115
Parenthood 120
Free spirits 123
Rée on women 125
8. A Glance at the State 129
Democracy and equality 130
Religion and politics 136
Socialism and nationalism 139
Revolution 142
Politics and culture 144
9. Conclusion to HAH: Alone with Oneself 149
10. Mixed Opinions and Maxims 157
Of first and last things 158
On the history of the moral sensations 163
The religious life 167

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 CONTENTS vii

From the souls of artists and writers 171

Woman and child 183
A glance at the state 186
Conclusion 189
11. The Wanderer and his Shadow 190
The protagonists 191
Care of the self 195
Free will 200
Equality 206
Punishment 208
Art 210
Politics 216
Etcetera 221

Glossary of Key Terms 225

Guide to Further Reading on Human, All Too Human 229
Bibliography 231
Index 237

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 Acknowledgements

First and foremost I thank Keith Ansell-Pearson and Dan Conway

for inviting me to write this book. Gratitude is owed also to the
two anonymous reviewers of the preliminary proposal for their
encouragement and insightful suggestions for how to improve.
Anna Gallagher heroically read the draft of the MS, carefully not-
ing my errors and making suggestions from her invaluable per-
spective. The book is better for her contribution.
Thanks are also due to Melissa Anderson, Erica Brown, Paul
Keyser, Mary Jean Kraybill, Sarah Lauzen, Blake Levinson,
Michele Lowrie, Ainat Margalit, Katharine Mershon, Sophie
Phillips, Theresa Ricke-Kiley, Fran Spaltro and Susanne Wengle.
Thanks too to my family and friends in Australia – Lisa Abbey,
Chris Abbey, Marilyn Abbey, Bec Abbey, Hayden Abbey, Jo
Crawford, Melinda Freyer, Cecily Hunter and Catherine Kovesi.
You might not even know it, but each of you in your own way
helped me through the difficult time that coincided with the
writing of this book.
My beloved feline friends, Spunkee and Renee, also lit my
way, and tiny orphan Scottie was present for the penultimate
phase. My last book included a dedication to the homeless cats of
Hyde Park Cats. Still they come, as sweet and inspiring as ever.
I work for the day when there won’t be any homeless feline
dedicatees for any of my books.

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 Chronology

1844 Nietzsche is born on 15 October in the small village

of Röcken in the Prussian province of Saxony, the
son and grandson of Protestant clergymen.
1849 Nietzsche’s father dies.
1858–64 He attends the Gymnasium Schlpforta, one of the
most famous boarding schools in Germany.
1864 Begins study at the University of Bonn in theology
and classical philology.
1865 Transfers to Leipzig University, following his philology
professor F. W. Ritschl. He first reads Schopenhauer’s
The World as Will and Representation.
1866 First reads Lange’s History of Materialism.
1868 Meets Richard Wagner for the first time.
1869 With the support of Ritschl, Nietzsche appointed
Extraordinary Professor of Classical Philology at the
University of Basel without yet earning his doctorate.
Begins frequent visits to the Wagners at Tribschen, on
Lake Lucerne.
1870 Volunteers as a medical orderly in the Franco-Prussian
War, but contracts severe illnesses and returns to Basel
within two months.
1872 Publishes his first book, The Birth of Tragedy Out of
the Spirit of Music, which is sharply criticised by other
philologists.

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 x NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

1873–74 Publishes the first three Unfashionable Observations,

which mark Nietzsche’s increased movement away
from his philological training. Relationship with
Wagner begins to sour.
1876 Publication of the final Observation, ‘Richard Wagner
in Bayreuth’, timed to coincide with the Bayreuth
Festival. Nietzsche attends the Festival and is disgusted
by it.
1878 Volume 1 of Human, All Too Human appears, begin-
ning what scholars consider to be Nietzsche’s mid-
dle period, influenced by Voltaire. Friendship with
Wagner ends.
1879 Publishes volume 2, part 1 of Human, All Too Human:
Assorted Opinions and Maxims. Health problems force
Nietzsche to resign from Basel (with a pension), and
he spends the next ten years in Swiss and Italian
boarding houses.
1880 Volume 2, part 2 of Human, All Too Human: The Wan-
derer and his Shadow appears.
1881 Publication of Dawn: Thoughts on the Presumptions of
Morality.
1882 Publishes The Gay Science, books 1–4. In April
travels to Rome, meets Lou Salomé, and proposes
marriage to her. She declines and the relationship
ends badly.
1883 Writes and publishes the first and second parts of
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None.
Wagner dies.
1884 Completion of third part of Zarathustra. Breaks with
his sister Elizabeth over her fiancé’s anti-Semitism.
1885 Final part of Zarathustra circulated privately.
1886 Publishes Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy
of the Future. New publisher reissues Birth of Tragedy and
Human,All Too Human, with new prefaces by Nietzsche.
1887 Publishes On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic. Also
reissues Daybreak and publishes expanded edition of
The Gay Science.

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 CHRONOLOGY xi

1888 Publishes The Case of Wagner and writes his final four
short books: Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Ecce
Homo and Nietzsche contra Wagner.
1889 Suffers a physical and mental collapse in Turin and
never recovers. After being briefly institutionalised, he
spends the remaining years of his life in his mother’s
and sister’s care.
1894 Elizabeth founds the Nietzsche Archive, which is
eventually moved to Weimar.
1900 Dies on 25 August in Weimar.

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 Abbreviations

BGE Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche 2002

BT The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche 1999
D Dawn: Thoughts on the Presumptions of Morality, Nietzsche
2011
EH Ecce Homo, in Nietzsche 2005
GM On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche 1994
GS The Gay Science, Nietzsche 2001
HAH Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche 1995
MOM Mixed Opinions and Maxims, in Nietzsche 2013
WS The Wanderer and his Shadow, in Nietzsche 2013

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 Introduction

However far human beings may reach with their knowl-

edge, however objective they may seem to themselves to
be: in the end, they still carry away nothing but their own
biography. (HAH 513)

Peruse any biography of Nietzsche and you will readily see

what a turbulent time in his life it was when he was working on
Human, All Too Human.1 Starting around the middle of 1876,
several significant changes were either underway or intensify-
ing. Among the most important was his gradual disentanglement
from his formerly close relationship with Richard and Cosima
Wagner. Nietzsche was finding his erstwhile mentor’s religious
tendencies, nationalism and prodigious egotism increasingly
insufferable. Having been an early enthusiast for the philosophy
of Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was also rethinking the value
of his philosophy. These two major developments are themselves
connected, because admiration for Schopenhauer was one of the
things that united Nietzsche to Wagner.2 After the incredible
speed with which he had entered the profession, Nietzsche was
having significant doubts about his propensity for an academic

1
Unless noted, Hayman (1980), Hollingdale (1999) and Young (2010) provide the bases
for the biographical information used here. For a very detailed account of this time in
Nietzsche’s life, see D’Iorio (2016).
2
As Ronald Hayman says, ‘If the inevitable breach with Wagner had not come so soon,
it might have taken Nietzsche longer to emancipate himself from Schopenhauer and the
tradition of idealism’ (1980: 190).

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 2 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

career.3 His health was poor: he suffered from blinding headaches

and debilitating gastrointestinal problems on a recurring basis.
At a few points his health was so bad that he felt close to death.
He moved from place to place in search of a conducive climate
and affordable accommodation (Handwerk 2013: 557). But dur-
ing this period he was also meeting new friends or consolidating
relatively new friendships, principal among them Malwida von
Meysenbug4 and Paul Rée.5 At this point Nietzsche also imag-
ined himself as a candidate for marriage and so was prospecting
for a suitable wife.6
In addition to all this turmoil in his personal life, this was a
period of immense intellectual transition and fermentation for
Nietzsche. As Richard Schacht remarks, HAH is ‘very much the
product of a mind in transition, moving in many different direc-
tions and in many different ways’ (1996: xi).7 This was also a very
productive time in Nietzsche’s scholarly life. The work originally
titled Human, All Too Human was published in early 1878. Mixed
Opinions and Maxims appeared in 1879 and The Wanderer and his
Shadow in 1880. HAH also marks the beginning of what is often
called Nietzsche’s middle period (which ends with the conclu-
sion of Book IV of The Gay Science). This periodisation comes

3
He resigned from his teaching position at Basel by letter on 2 May 1879, citing chronic
ill health with no prospects for full recovery. The university’s governing body approved
his request on 14 June that year, effective 30 June. They awarded him an annual pension
for six years (Levy 1985: 119–21; cf. Handwerk 2013: 556).
4
Nietzsche met von Meysenbug through Wagner’s circle in the early 1870s (Hollingdale
1999: 88).
5
Hollingdale records that Rée was a non-student auditor of Nietzsche’s 1873 lecture series
on the pre-Platonic philosophers (1999: 90).
6
He had proposed, by letter, to Mathilde Trampedach on 11 April 1876. Four days later
he withdrew his offer, again by letter, realising, no doubt with some assistance from her
rejection, how hasty and inappropriate it was (Leidecker 1959: 67–8; cf. Hollingdale
1999: 95). Before that month was out, however, Nietzsche was writing to Elisabeth out-
lining the help that von Meysenbug was giving him in finding a wife (Hollingdale 1999:
109). As Hollingdale says, ‘it is at odds with received opinion about Nietzsche, and yet it
is true, that for much of his life he was on the look-out for a wife’ (1999: 95). Although
it was probably less true for the later years of his life, it was certainly true at this time. As
Hollingdale also points out, Nietzsche was experiencing the ‘all my friends are getting
married’ syndrome between 1874 and 1877 (1999: 95).
7
Ansell-Pearson (2018: 24) also quotes this.

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 INTRODUCTION 3

from one of the first interpretive works about Nietzsche – Lou

Salomé’s Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken – published in 1894.
Indeed, Salomé originated the idea that three distinct periods can
be discerned in Nietzsche’s corpus.8 Whatever one thinks about
this periodisation, and however much similarity or difference one
finds among the five works of the middle period, it cannot be
denied that HAH instigates some important changes that differen-
tiate it from Nietzsche’s previous works.9 Some of these innova-
tions become, moreover, permanent features of his work. These
include his self-representation as a psychologist,10 his genealogical
excavations of morality,11 and his appeal to fellow good Europeans
to overcome the parochialism and antagonism of nationalism.
With this he sloughs off the preoccupation with national great-
ness that characterised The Birth of Tragedy.

Style
At a very basic level, the text of HAH looks different from the four
long essays that comprise the Untimely Meditations, marked as it is
by breaks between pieces of writing of different lengths and pep-
pered as it is with aphorisms (Hill 2007: 37; Franco 2011: 13).12 As
Thomas Brobjer says, with the advent of HAH Nietzsche ‘went
from writing essays to writing aphorisms’ (2008a: 62). Brobjer sug-
gests that this reflects Rée’s influence, for Rée’s own collection of
aphorisms, Psychological Observations [Psychologische Beobachtungen],
had been published in 1877. In addition to writing aphorisms, Rée

8
On the scholarly neglect of the middle period, see Abbey (2000) and Ansell-Pearson
(2018). For information on some recent scholarship on these works, see Abbey (2014).
9
See Acharya (2015) for an argument about continuity between the earlier works and
HAH, at least on the issue of the role of science and its relationship to culture. He detects
a shift in emphasis rather than a radical break.
10
See, for example, BGE, Chapter 9, 269.
11
Cf. Hayman (1980: 199), Morrison (2003) and Young (2010: 249).
12
I don’t agree with Franco’s claim that each numbered paragraph has its own discrete
argument. In some cases the passages need to be read together to fully grasp their point.
As Franco himself says shortly after, the aphorisms ‘are not simply isolated or discon-
nected insights’ (2011: 15). And it is not the case, as Franco says (2011: 13), that each
passage has its own title. Some remain untitled.

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 4 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

also wrote about their importance.13 Yet while many commenta-

tors call HAH aphoristic, the first real aphorism does not appear
until section 66, nearly halfway through chapter 2. Aphorisms dot
the work from then on until the first sustained run of them appears
at the start of chapter 6. The practice of opening the chapter with
a string of aphorisms is repeated in chapters 7 and 9, with the latter
containing the largest number of genuine aphorisms in HAH. Yet
the aphorism turns out to be just one of many styles deployed in
HAH. Nietzsche also uses numbered and titled passages, most of
which are paragraph-length while some occupy a page or more.14
What HAH really inaugurates is, therefore, Nietzsche’s stylistic
diversity: that ‘most manifold art of style’ upon which he prides
himself in Ecce Homo15 starts here. This stylistic diversity is further
enhanced when WS stages brief dialogues – between the
Wanderer and his Shadow, Pyrrho and the old man (WS 213)
and unnamed speakers (WS 71, 90).16
One reason for the stylistic diversity that begins with HAH
is that while the aphorism is well suited to fine-grained analyses
of personality and to the communication of specificity, this form
cannot serve all of Nietzsche’s scholarly purposes. It is, for exam-
ple, singularly inhospitable to the times when his analysis takes a
broad trajectory in moral observation and speculation. Reborn in a
limited arena – the salon – the aphorism cannot bear the historical
perspective that attracts Nietzsche and that he insists is essential to

13
Other possible influences include Lichtenberg (Brobjer 2008a: 63), Schopenhauer, La
Rochefoucauld and Chamfort. Handwerk also points to the similarities with Schopen-
hauer (Nietzsche 1995: 378). But Brobjer believes that Rée’s influence is the strongest
(2008a: 41, 64).
14
Of the three works considered here, MOM is the most aphoristic, with around three
items appearing on average on each page. HAH and WS have closer to two items per
page, on average.
15
‘Why I Write Such Excellent Books’, Section 4.
16
What Carol Diethe says about GM applies also to HAH: ‘Nietzsche is often referred to
as an “aphoristic” writer, but this falls short of capturing the sheer variety of forms and
styles he adopted. In fact, the number of genuine aphorisms in his works is relatively
small; instead, most of what are called Nietzsche’s “aphorisms” are more substantial para-
graphs which exhibit a unified train of thought (frequently encapsulated in a paragraph
heading indicating the subject matter), and it is from these building blocks that the other,
larger structures are built in more or less extended sequences’ (Nietzsche 2007: xv).

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 INTRODUCTION 5

the advancement of knowledge. His longer purview often requires

lengthier argument and illustration (or allusion and assertion) than
the aphorism can sustain. This explains why, when he wants to
emphasise the history of moral designations or exemplify an alter-
native ethic, he typically reverts to the longer paragraph form,
which can occupy two or more pages and which might be better
called an essayette or reflection than an aphorism (cf. Nietzsche
1995: 377).17
But the topic itself is not determinative of the genre: many
issues are approached via a multitude of styles such that Nietzsche
will discuss them in an aphorism and a paragraph and a longer pas-
sage. As we learn from Robin Small, this too is characteristic of
Rée’s work, for while the aphorism can deliver short sharp psy-
chological observations to great effect and with great efficiency,
it is not useful for the sort of extended and historical analysis Rée
moved towards in his next book, The Origin of the Moral Sensations
(Small 2005: 56, 58). So both thinkers should be seen as including
aphorisms in their repertoire but not confining themselves to this
vehicle in any strict sense (cf. Small 2005: 59). Nietzsche’s adop-
tion of the mixed genre mode is just one of several ways in which
his burgeoning friendship with Rée marks his work at this time.
Thanks to Small we have a detailed and highly informative
study of their philosophical friendship. Both advocate a historical
approach to knowledge, both admire the natural sciences as a para-
digm for knowledge, and both strive to make the study of morality
more scientific. But it would be too simplistic to say that Nietzsche
fell under Rée’s spell during these years, as some of HAH’s first
readers, confused by this seemingly sudden shift in Nietzsche’s
style, did (Hollingdale 1999: 90; Young 2010: 274). As Small
indicates, the changes in Nietzsche’s interests and approaches had
been preparing themselves for some time (2005: xviii, xx, 57). His
friendship with Rée mobilised, rather than caused, those changes,
as Brobjer also suggests: ‘The changes in Nietzsche’s thinking, and
the psychological crisis, seem to have begun before he met Rée,

17
Nicholas Martin calls them ‘discursive miniatures’ (2008: 88). Cohen offers many inter-
esting remarks about Nietzsche’s style in HAH (2010: ch. 6).

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 6 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

but the reading and friendship with him clearly reinforced and
probably radicalised the changes’ (Brobjer 2008a: 62; cf. 41; see
also Cohen 2010: 52–3; Hollingdale 1999: 90–1).

Enlightenment
Nietzsche’s middle period is sometimes also called his positivist or
enlightenment phase. And within that, Keith Ansell-Pearson con-
veys that HAH ‘is typically construed as . . . being his most posi-
tivistic text in which the scientific interpretation of the world is
privileged and guides the inquiry into religion, metaphysics, art and
culture’ (2018: 17).18 While HAH does repeatedly express admira-
tion for science’s methods and procedures, and for the values and
characteristics of its practitioners, and while Nietzsche is relentlessly
critical of metaphysics, it is an exaggeration to call the work positiv-
ist in any robust sense. This is especially the case if Young is correct
to claim that positivism is ‘the assumption that the world is, and is
only, the way natural science says it is’ (2006: 86, emphasis original).
We need to keep in mind that what Nietzsche means by science
is the careful, dispassionate quest for knowledge, the possibility of
seeing the world as it really is, without wishful thinking or the need
for imputing meaning to it. As Small points out, ‘When Nietzsche
refers to science (Wissenschaft) . . . he is invoking a concept of disci-
plined inquiry which applies to classical philology as much as to the
investigation of natural phenomena’ (2005: 9).
This point about what science connotes for Nietzsche finds
illustration in HAH 8 where he analogises science to philology,
claiming that ‘It requires a great deal of understanding to apply
the same sort of more rigorous exegesis to nature that philologists
have created for all books: with the intention of simply under-
standing what the writing means to say, not to scent or in fact to
presuppose a double meaning.’19 Likewise in HAH 266 he writes
that one of the benefits of exposing Gymnasia students to the

18
Cohen sees Nietzsche as embracing ‘his own form of positivism’ in HAH (1999: 104),
but seems to equate positivism with enthusiasm for science.
19
I modify Handwerk’s translation but follow Hollingdale’s by including the jetzt (now)
from Nietzsche’s text.

6215_Abbey.indd 6 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 INTRODUCTION 7

classics is that they hear ‘concepts, technical terms, methods and

allusions’ that are unfamiliar from everyday life. ‘If the students
only listen, their intellects will involuntarily be preformed along
the lines of a scientific way of seeing things’ (HAH 266). We
find it illustrated again when a few passages later Nietzsche talks
about reading rather than listening. He congratulates philologists
for their art of careful reading and trying to decipher what an
author is saying. ‘All of science attained continuity and steadi-
ness only when the art of reading correctly . . . reached its peak’
(HAH 270). These passages all demonstrate that HAH’s invo-
cations of science should not be conflated with unadulterated
praise for the natural sciences, and cast doubt on the aptness of the
positivist moniker for this work. As Gianni Vattimo says, ‘while
idealizing science as a model of method, [HAH] does not attrib-
ute the sole legitimate and valid knowledge of the world to the
positive sciences’ (2000: 149).20
The term enlightenment seems more a propos than positivist for
these writings and, unlike the latter,21 this is a term that Nietzsche
applied to his own work at this time.22 Nietzsche frequently
appeals favourably to the Enlightenment, he associates it with the
growth of scientific knowledge, and he situates himself as part of
the Enlightenment. But his relationship to the Enlightenment is
nuanced. Consider his suggestion that Schopenhauer’s thought was
something of a throwback: ‘the whole medieval Christian way of
viewing the world and perceiving humanity could . . . celebrate
its resurrection in Schopenhauer’s teaching’ (HAH 26). Yet this
throwback has proven to be a boon for knowledge by fostering a

20
Although Vattimo devotes a chapter of his book to each of D and GS, he makes only
passing reference to HAH. See also Jessica Berry’s helpful remarks on Nietzsche’s views
on science in HAH (2015: 107–10).
21
As Magnus and Higgins note, Nietzsche was going to use the term positivist to describe
HAH retrospectively, but abandoned that version of the preface (1996: 61 n. 21).
22
Franco calls his book on the middle period Nietzsche’s Enlightenment, but nowhere
does he define what he means, nor what he thinks Nietzsche means, by enlightenment
beyond saying that Nietzsche ‘imparts his own distinctive meaning’ to this term (2011:
x). Vinod Acharya cautions against portraying Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker
at this time, but overlooks the fact that Nietzsche employs this term himself. Acharya
also charges me with this mistake of considering Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker
(2015: 27 n. 25), while failing to mention Franco’s title.

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 8 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

better understanding of Christianity than was available elsewhere in

Nietzsche’s time because of the influence of Enlightenment ration-
alism. By taking an overly rationalist approach, the Enlightenment
lost sight of some of religion’s power and the reasons for its influ-
ence. Schopenhauer offered a valuable corrective to the Enlight-
enment view, enabling one to understand Christianity’s appeal.
So what looks like a criticism of Schopenhauer for holding on to
an obsolete view turns out to be beneficial to human knowledge.
While Schopenhauerean philosophy is evidence that ‘the scientific
spirit is not yet strong enough’, this weakness turns out to be salu-
tary. This explains this section’s title: ‘Reaction as progress’. This
claim – that the period of the Enlightenment did not understand
religion, and that Schopenhauer supplied a more useful interpreta-
tion (more useful, that is, to those who really want to understand
religion rather than simply endorse it) – is repeated in HAH 110.
But whereas Schopenhauer inadvertently advanced enlighten-
ment, Nietzsche portrays himself as consciously picking up the
baton to carry the Enlightenment forward.

Only after this great success of justice, only after we have

corrected in so essential a point the way of viewing history
that the Age of Enlightenment brought with it, can we once
more bear the flag of the Enlightenment farther – the flag
with the three names: Petrarch, Erasmus, Voltaire. We have
made reaction into progress. (HAH 26)23

This identification of Voltaire as an Enlightenment thinker in

whose footsteps Nietzsche follows reminds us that HAH’s first
publication included a dedication on the 100th anniversary of
Voltaire’s death.24 Although he removed this from later edi-
tions of the text, his enthusiasm for Voltaire persists across the
rest of his work (Garrard 2008: 606–7). The idea that in HAH
Nietzsche is seeking to revive the qualities of the Enlightenment

23
See HAH 219 for a variation on this theme.
24
Martin (2008) underlines this element of Nietzsche’s thinking and offers an illuminating
account of the appeal Voltaire held for him. Cf. Rethy (1976: 289).

6215_Abbey.indd 8 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 INTRODUCTION 9

also appears in his contrast between Voltaire’s ‘moderate nature’

and Rousseau’s ‘passionate follies and half-lies’ (HAH 463). He
picks up the Voltairean catch-cry, Ecrasez l’infâme,25 which was
originally directed at the Catholic Church, its religious intol-
erance and its alliance with the French state. Redirecting it to
Rousseau and the ‘optimistic spirit of revolution’ (HAH 463), he
charges that their optimism wrongly trusted in both the natural
goodness of humans and the Revolution’s ability to unleash and
restore this goodness. This naïve, optimistic, Rousseauean spirit
of the revolution ‘has for a long time frightened off the spirit of
enlightenment and of progressive development: let us look to
see – everyone within himself – whether it is possible to call it
back again!’
In WS Nietzsche notes again how the Enlightenment became
entangled with the French Revolution, with dire consequences.
These were not, in Nietzsche’s estimation, natural allies, for left to
its own devices, the focus of the Enlightenment would have been
to change particular individuals and to gradually affect ‘the cus-
toms and institutions of peoples as well’ (WS 221). However, the
Enlightenment got bound up with the Revolution and assumed
some of its violence and ferocity. The challenge for those who
want to keep the flame of enlightenment alive is to extricate it
from the mentality of the French Revolution and restore to it its
individual focus and the possibility of gradual social change. As
Nietzsche says, ‘He who grasps this will also know out of what
compound it has to be extracted, of what impurity it has to be
cleansed, so as then to continue the work of the Enlightenment
in himself, and to strangle the Revolution at birth, to make it not
happen’ (WS 221). So once again we see that he situates himself
as both legatee and vehicle of enlightenment.26 Although WS 189
does not refer specifically to the Enlightenment, it does describe
the great task ahead of humanity – that of ‘preparing the earth for

25
Meaning ‘crush/destroy the infamous’. Nietzsche’s original text omitted the circumflex
from l’infâme.
26
Garrard (2008: 596) underlines how unusual it is to separate the Enlightenment from the
French Revolution in this way, and observes that in his later writings, Nietzsche changes
position to enunciate a continuity thesis between the two.

6215_Abbey.indd 9 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 10 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

a growth in the greatest and happiest fertility’ as being ‘a task of

reason, and for reason’ (WS 189).
Along with Voltaire, Descartes also played a role in the very
first edition of HAH, which, in lieu of a preface, included a pas-
sage from Part 3 of the Discourse on Method. The passage describes
Descartes’ decision ‘to employ my entire life in cultivating my
reason and to advance myself as far as I could in the knowledge
of the truth . . .’27 It also recounts the philosopher’s contentment
at making this choice. Nietzsche expunged the passage from the
book’s subsequent edition, along with its dedication to Voltaire.
But it is interesting to note that in this work’s first inception,
Nietzsche praised this famous seventeenth-century French phi-
losopher, scientist and rationalist.28
Although he does sometimes refer to the Enlightenment as a
period or epoch (HAH 110), by ‘enlightenment’ Nietzsche also
means a longer, ongoing process that has been present, and either
advanced or retarded, across the centuries of Western civilisation
(cf. Garrard 2008: 596–7). For one example of how he under-
stands the historical process of enlightenment, consider his claim
that during the Middle Ages

the Jewish freethinkers, scholars and physicians . . . held fast

to the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence
. . . it is not least thanks to their efforts that a more natural,
rational and . . . unmythical explanation of the world could
once again emerge triumphant and that the ring of culture
that now unites us with the enlightenment of Greek and
Roman antiquity remained unbroken. (HAH 475)

Petrarch from the fourteenth century and Erasmus who lived

from the mid-fifteenth to mid-sixteenth century would not nor-
mally be classified as part of the Enlightenment. But this again
reflects the dual meaning Nietzsche gives to enlightenment – as

27
The passage is included in Gary Handwerk’s translation of Human, All Too Human
(1995). The page on which it appears has no number. Handwerk comments briefly on
it in the second volume (2013: 564).
28
See Rethy (1976) for a fuller discussion of this.

6215_Abbey.indd 10 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 INTRODUCTION 11

a particular historical epoch and as a process that has ebbed and

flowed across the course of Western history. He considers the
Renaissance to have been an enlightened phase in Western his-
tory because of its great respect for of scientific thinking (cf. HAH
237. HAH 219 offers a variation on this theme.)
As Nietzsche’s just-cited call ‘to continue the work of the
Enlightenment in oneself’ hints, enlightenment is also viewed as
a personal project, a quality and process that individuals can and
should cultivate within themselves. So Nietzsche thinks of enlight-
enment in a dual sense – as an undulating historical process and as
a personal project, rather than simply a particular era. In this there
are parallels with Immanuel Kant’s essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’
(1784). Although there is no direct evidence that Nietzsche was
familiar with this essay,29 it is striking to see the convergences in
their thinking about what enlightenment requires. At this time,
Nietzsche could only applaud Kant’s definition of enlightenment as

man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Imma-

turity is the inability to use one’s understanding without
guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed
when its cause lies . . . in lack of resolve and courage to
use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to
know] ‘Have courage to use your own understanding!’ –
that is the motto of enlightenment. (Kant 2019)

As Kant soon adds, laziness joins cowardice as an explanation for

immaturity:

It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as

my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a
physician to determine my diet for me . . . I need not exert
myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will
readily undertake the irksome work for me. (Kant 2019)

29
Brobjer numbers Kant among Nietzsche’s major philosophical influences. He reports
that Nietzsche read Kant’s third critique but also read a lot about Kant by commentators
(2008a: 36–9). It is possible that he encountered the ideas in this essay in the secondary
literature or that the parallels between their views are just coincidental.

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 12 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

The Nietzschean elements here are manifest – the emphasis on

intellectual independence and on the personal qualities that are
necessary accompaniments to this – courage and vigour. Indeed,
Nietzsche’s portraits of the scientific person (or spirit or soul) in
HAH repeatedly emphasise the intellectual virtues needed for this
sort of heroism.30
But whatever the idiosyncrasies in Nietzsche’s conception
of it, HAH, MOM and WS show him to be more receptive
to the Enlightenment tradition than he is typically taken to be.
Nietzsche’s praise for the Enlightenment is real but nuanced and
somewhat idiosyncratic.31 Brobjer, an astute and sensitive reader
of Nietzsche’s corpus, captures some of what was happening to
Nietzsche’s thought at this time in this way:

During 1875 and 1876, Nietzsche went through an intel-

lectual and emotional crisis and changed fundamental aspects
of his Weltanschauung, including breaking with Schopen-
hauer, Kant, and Wagner. Nietzsche then exchanged his ear-
lier enthusiasm for metaphysics, idealism, pessimism, art and
aesthetics for a position that was sceptical and free-spirited,
placed science above art, and praised the Enlightenment.
(2008a: 61)

But even our brief discussion thus far shows the fragility of
Brobjer’s account. Schopenhauer has not been completely
broken with and in some ways Kant is embraced.

30
On this point my reading departs from Garrard’s who sees Nietzsche as defining the
Enlightenment as a purely French phenomenon and excluding German thinkers. He
imputes to Nietzsche the view that Kant was an enemy of the Enlightenment at this
time (Garrard 2008: 600, 603). Although he does not refer to HAH, David Owen
(2003) has made this point about the convergences between Kant and Nietzsche’s
views and concludes that Nietzsche’s philosophy expresses a ruthless and relentless
commitment to Kant’s maxim of enlightenment: Sapere Aude! See also Ansell-Pearson
(2018: 48, 57).
31
Ansell-Pearson (2018) portrays Nietzsche as adducing an ethos of Epicurean enlighten-
ment in his middle writings. But as chapter 2 of his book testifies, he also recognises
more modern influences on Nietzsche’s enlightenment stance.

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 INTRODUCTION 13

Epistemology-plus
Keith Ansell-Pearson and Duncan Large observe that HAH ‘is
remarkably different in tone and outlook from his previous pub-
lished work. Wagner was repulsed by Nietzsche’s new philosophi-
cal outlook, and even Nietzsche’s closest friends wondered how it
was possible for someone to discard their soul and don a completely
different one in its place’ (2006: xxiv; cf. Small 2005: 31–3; Cohen
2010: 250 n. 5; Young 2010: 273–4). While HAH indisputably
inaugurates some important changes in Nietzsche’s work of the
kind noted above, this introduction and guide proposes and prac-
tises a reading of this work that is more attentive to its turbulent
nature. Throughout these writings we find Nietzsche’s thought
to be in constant debate with itself; R. J. Hollingdale refers to ‘his
dialectical skill in experimenting with points of view’ (1999: 112).
Seen through this prism, this is not the work of someone who
has ‘discarded one soul and donned another’: the reality is more
complicated – and more interesting!
As part of its project of making this turbulence visible, this
introduction and guide will show that throughout HAH Nietzsche
repeatedly returns to the dilemma of how to live with the knowl-
edge generated by science. His enthusiasm for science, though
genuine, is far from unbridled and does not completely eclipse his
previous enthusiasms. And while he does endorse the scientific
approach as the best path to true knowledge, he does not shy
away from the dangers and debilitations that seeking and find-
ing such knowledge generate. Those who read him as a whole-
hearted enthusiast for science or positivism in this work neglect
Nietzsche’s own concern with the existential shadow that science
casts. I cannot, therefore, agree with Young’s claim that HAH
‘adopts and inhabits’ the stance of the scientific person (1992: 59)
as a complete picture of what is happening in this work. Rather
than being a poster boy for modern science, Nietzsche is better
read as conducting an honest, searching and troubled conversa-
tion with himself about the implications of treading the scientific
path to knowledge. Young is closer to the mark when he says that
‘Given that his fundamental concerns lie always with life, “trying
on for size” means asking how positivism stands with regard to

6215_Abbey.indd 13 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 14 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

the possibility of a healthy humanity’ (2006: 61). As this suggests,

Nietzsche’s assessment of knowledge is, moreover, never purely
epistemological; he also repeatedly attends to the ethical, expe-
riential and aesthetic dimensions of knowing. This applies both
to his critique of metaphysics and to his promotion of scientific
knowledge in its stead. In both cases he asks, in addition to the
truth value that this approach yields, what sort of character traits
does the pursuit of this form of knowledge require? What will it
feel like to pursue and acquire this sort of knowledge? Will a sense
of beauty or satisfaction be engendered by this quest? I call this
cluster of concerns his ‘epistemology-plus’ perspective and we
will encounter this perspective in chapter after chapter of HAH.

Structure
Although originally published separately in quick succession,
HAH, MOM and WS were eventually amalgamated, with the
second and third works forming Volume II of HAH. Gary
Handwerk reports that Nietzsche’s new publisher suggested this
fusion in 1886 (2013: 561).32 In its two-volume form, HAH
represents the longest publication in Nietzsche’s corpus. When
these three writings were combined into a two-volume work,
Nietzsche appended a Preface to each volume. In recognition
of this publication history, this introduction and guide treats the
three original works separately, so that the title HAH applies only
to the work with nine chapters and 638 numbered sections pub-
lished originally under that title. Separate chapters are devoted
to Mixed Opinions and Maxims and The Wanderer and his Shadow
respectively.33 The Prefaces, having been added so much later, are
not treated here as part of the original writings.

32
Hayman reports that one thousand copies of HAH were printed but only 120 sold
(1980: 213; cf. Nietsche 1995: 374).
33
Cf. Cohen (2010) who confines himself largely to HAH, discussing ‘The Problem of
Volume II’ separately. Young’s analysis of Nietzsche’s views on art at this time separates
HAH from MOM from WS (1992: 58). However, when discussing Nietzsche’s views
on religion a decade later, Young reverses course to treat ‘the three works as the unity
Nietzsche presented them as being in 1886’ (2006: 6).

6215_Abbey.indd 14 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 INTRODUCTION 15

My decision not to discuss the 1886 Prefaces is atypical, for

most scholars who comment on HAH do appeal to the Prefaces
to help make sense of the work. Yet with this introduction and
guide, I take myself to be giving an overview of how Nietzsche
was thinking at this time. For that reason a discussion of the 1886
Prefaces does not belong here. In my view, moreover, the Pref-
aces are part of the rewriting of his history that Nietzsche engaged
in and what they shed light on is what he was thinking after, but
not during, the writing of HAH, MOM and WS. On the few
occasions when I do refer to the works after HAH, it is always
a reading forward (something that starts in HAH is continued)
rather than reading backward, which is what drawing on the
Prefaces to explain HAH does.
The parts of this introduction and guide that deal with HAH
are, moreover, organised according to its own chapter divisions.
Nietzsche elected to create chapters so we should assume, a priori,
that this has some theoretical or thematic import. Two issues can
be discerned with regard to his division of the work into chapters.
One is to what extent the sections within each chapter relate to
one another in any specific way – is there intra-chapter cohesion?
The other is about whether and how each chapter within HAH
relates to the others. On this later question, Paul Franco claims
that ‘The chapters stand alongside one another without any clear
indication as to how they are to be integrated into a single, coher-
ent argument’ (2011: 15). This does not, however, prevent him
from structuring his chapter about HAH around Nietzsche’s first
five chapters of that book, which suggests that the chapter divi-
sions and their order do carry some relevance after all. Franco
later says that chapter 3 of HAH ‘forms a bridge between the
preceding chapter on morality and the ensuing chapters on art
and culture’ (2011: 35), which indicates again that the chapters
do not exist in splendid isolation from one another. What is also
odd about Franco’s approach is that although he insists on treating
HAH, MOM and WS as a unity, he arranges his chapter devoted
to all three around the chapter order of HAH alone.
Laurence Lampert, by contrast, imputes considerable integrity
to HAH’s chapter structure, arguing that this work ‘treats phi-
losophy in a single chapter’ (chapter 1) (2017: 159) while chapters

6215_Abbey.indd 15 15/11/19 12:47 PM

 16 NIETZSCHE’S HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

2, 3 and 4 treat morality, religion and art respectively (2017: 171).

Although it is basically correct, Lampert’s approach strikes me
as overly schematic – the distribution of Nietzsche’s ideas across
the work is not so highly disciplined as this. Indeed, the whole
work can be read as a meditation on what a philosophy of the
future should look like, and the issues of morality, religion and art
thread themselves through the work as a whole. Nietzsche brings
out, moreover, how metaphysical thinking has been influenced
by religion, and art by metaphysics and religion, so these topics
cannot be strictly separated in his way of handling them.
By moving through the material chapter by chapter and taking
each chapter sequentially, this introduction and guide facilitates
the exploration of both of the above questions. It proceeds as if the
chapters might have some meaning and integrity as organisational
units and explores them sequentially to see if the order in which
they appear has any significance. Only after running that test can
we decide whether the way Nietzsche organises his material has
any salience. It is also important to recall that Nietzsche gave each
of HAH’s chapters a title, which further suggests that there may be
some order, structure and purpose underlying the book’s design.
The approach adopted here is akin to that of Jonathan Cohen in
his very fine study of HAH (2010).34 But unlike Cohen’s book,
this introduction and guide devotes a chapter to each of HAH’s
chapters and one to MOM and to WS each. Although this intro-
duction and guide proceeds sequentially, it does not claim to offer
a comprehensive account of these three works. It picks up on the
main themes and concerns of each chapter rather than providing
commentary on each section.35

Chapter summary
Chapter 1 of HAH insists that traditional forms of knowledge
such as metaphysics and religion are no longer viable, advocat-
ing instead a historical approach to knowledge which Nietzsche

34
See in particular chapter 6 of Cohen (2010) and its reflections on structure and style.
35
In this way it contrasts with Monika Langer’s 2010 study of The Gay Science which com-
ments assiduously on every passage.

6215_Abbey.indd 16 15/11/19 12:47 PM

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Provence rose
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: A Provence rose

Author: Ouida

Illustrator: Amy M. Sacker

Release date: September 26, 2023 [eBook #71730]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Joseph Knight Company,

1893

Credits: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A

PROVENCE ROSE ***
A PROVENCE ROSE.
 “Cosy Corner Series”

A PROVENCE ROSE
BY

LOUISA DE LA RAMÉ
(“OUIDA”)

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON
JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY
1894
 Copyright, 1893
by
Joseph Knight Company
 ILLVSTRATIONS
PAGE
“You Painted This, M. René Claude?” Frontispiece.
“A Young Girl had Found and Rescued Me” 7
“In a very Narrow Street” 13
“He was a Painter” 22
“One Night ... Lili Came to my Side by the Open
28
Lattice”
“She Fell on her Knees before it” 39
Tailpiece, Part I. 42
Headpiece, Part II. 43
Tailpiece, Part II. 75
A PROVENCE ROSE.
 PART FIRST.

I was a Provence rose.

A little slender rose, with leaves of shining green and blossoms of
purest white,—a little fragile thing, but fair, they said, growing in the
casement in a chamber in a street.
I remember my birth-country well. A great wild garden, where roses
grew together by millions and tens of millions, all tossing our bright
heads in the light of a southern sun on the edge of an old, old city—
old as Rome—whose ruins were clothed with the wild fig-tree and
the scarlet blossom of the climbing creepers growing tall and free in
our glad air of France.
I remember how the ruined aqueduct went like a dark shadow
straight across the plains; how the green and golden lizards crept in
and out and about amongst the grasses; how the cicala sang her
song in the moist, sultry eves; how the women from the wells came
trooping by, stately as monarchs, with their water-jars upon their
heads; how the hot hush of the burning noons would fall, and all
things droop and sleep except ourselves; how swift amongst us
would dart the little blue-winged birds, and hide their heads in our
white breasts and drink from our hearts the dew, and then hover
above us in their gratitude, with sweet, faint music of their wings, till
sunset came.
I remember— But what is the use? I am only a rose; a thing born for
a day, to bloom and be gathered, and die. So you say: you must
know. God gave you all created things for your pleasure and use. So
you say.
There my birth was; there I lived—in the wide south, with its strong,
quivering light, its radiant skies, its purple plains, its fruits of gourd
and vine. I was young; I was happy; I lived: it was enough.
One day a rough hand tore me from my parent stem and took me,
bleeding and drooping, from my birthplace, with a thousand other
captives of my kind. They bound a score of us up together, and
made us a cruel substitute for our cool, glad garden-home with poor
leaves, all wet from their own tears, and mosses torn as we were
from their birth-nests under the great cedars that rose against the
radiant native skies.
Then we were shut in darkness for I know not how long a space; and
when we saw the light of day again we were lying with our dear dead
friends, the leaves, with many flowers of various kinds, and foliage
and ferns and shrubs and creeping plants, in a place quite strange to
us,—a place filled with other roses and with all things that bloom and
bear in the rich days of midsummer,—a place which I heard them
call the market of the Madeleine. And when I heard that name I knew
that I was in Paris.
For many a time, when the dread hand of the reaper had descended
upon us, and we had beheld our fairest and most fragrant relatives
borne away from us to death, a shiver that was not of the wind had
run through all our boughs and blossoms, and all the roses had
murmured in sadness and in terror, “Better the worm or the drought,
the blight or the fly, the whirlwind that scatters us as chaff, or the
waterspout that levels our proudest with the earth—better any of
these than the long-lingering death by famine and faintness and
thirst that awaits every flower which goes to the Madeleine.”
It was an honor, no doubt, to be so chosen. A rose was the purest,
the sweetest, the haughtiest of all her sisterhood ere she went
thither. But, though honor is well no doubt, yet it surely is better to
blow free in the breeze and to live one’s life out, and to be, if
forgotten by glory, yet also forgotten by pain. Nay, yet: I have known
a rose, even a rose who had but one little short life of a summer day
to live through and to lose, perish glad and triumphant in its prime
because it died on a woman’s breast and of a woman’s kiss. You see
there are roses as weak as men are.
I awoke, I say, from my misery and my long night of travel, with my
kindred beside me in exile, on a flower-stall of the Madeleine.
It was noon—the pretty place was full of people: it was June, and the
day was brilliant. A woman of Picardy sat with us on the board before
her,—a woman with blue eyes and ear-rings of silver, who bound us
together in fifties and hundreds into those sad gatherings of our pale
ghosts which in your human language you have called “bouquets.”
The loveliest and greatest amongst us suffered decapitation, as your
Marie Stuarts and Marie Antoinettes did, and died at once to have
their beautiful, bright heads impaled—a thing of death, a mere
mockery of a flower—on slender spears of wire. I, a little white and
fragile thing, and very young, was in no way eminent enough
amongst my kind to find that martyrdom which as surely awaits the
loveliest of our roses as it awaits the highest fame of your humanity.
I was bound up amongst a score of others with ropes of gardener’s
bass to chain me amidst my fellow-prisoners, and handed over by
my jailer with the silver ear-rings to a youth who paid for us with a
piece of gold—whether of great or little value I know not now. None
of my own roses were with me: all were strangers. You never think,
of course, that a little rose can care for its birthplace or its kindred;
but you err.
O fool! Shall we not care for one another?—we who have so divine a
life in common, who together sleep beneath the stars, and together
sport in the summer wind, and together listen to the daybreak
singing of the birds, whilst the world is dark and deaf in slumber—we
who know that we are all of heaven that God, when He called away
His angels, bade them leave on the sin-stained, weary, sickly earth
to now and then make man remember Him!
You err. We love one another well; and if we may not live in union,
we crave at least in union to droop and die. It is seldom that we have
this boon. Wild flowers can live and die together; so can the poor
amongst you: but we of the cultivated garden needs must part and
die alone.
All the captives with me were strangers: haughty, scentless
pelargoniums; gardenias, arrogant even in their woe; a knot of little,
humble forget-me-nots, ashamed in the grand company of patrician
prisoners; a stephanalis, virginal and pure, whose dying breath was
peace and sweetness; and many sprays of myrtle born in Rome,
whose classic leaves wailed Tasso’s lamentation as they went.
I must have been more loosely fettered than the rest were, for in the
rough, swift motion of the youth who bore us my bonds gave way
and I fell through the silver transparency of our prison-house, and
dropped stunned upon the stone pavement of a street.
There I lay long, half senseless, praying, so far as I had
consciousness, that some pitying wind would rise and waft me on his
wings away to some shadow, some rest, some fresh, cool place of
silence.
I was tortured with thirst; I was choked with dust; I was parched with
heat.
The sky was as brass, the stones as red-hot metal; the sun scorched
like flame on the glare of the staring walls; the heavy feet of the
hurrying crowd tramped past me black and ponderous; with every
step I thought my death would come under the crushing weight of
those clanging heels.
It was five seconds, five hours—which I know not. The torture was
too horrible to be measured by time. I must have been already dead,
or at the very gasp of death, when a cool, soft touch was laid on me;
I was gently lifted, raised to tender lips, and fanned with a gentle,
cooling breath,—breath from the lips that had kissed me.
A young girl had found and rescued me,—a girl of the people, poor
enough to deem a trampled flower a treasure-trove.
She carried me very gently, carefully veiling me from sun and dust as
we went; and when I recovered perception I was floating in a
porcelain bath on the surface of cool, fresh water, from which I drank
eagerly as soon as my sickly sense of faintness passed away.
My bath stood on the lattice-sill of a small chamber; it was, I knew
afterward, but a white pan of common earthenware, such as you buy
for two sous and put in your birdcages. But no bath of ivory and pearl
and silver was ever more refreshing to imperial or patrician limbs
than was that little clean and
snowy pattypan to me.
Under its reviving influences I
became able to lift my head
and raise my leaves and
spread myself to the sunlight,
and look round me. The
chamber was in the roof, high
above the traffic of the
passage-way beneath; it was
very poor, very simple,
furnished with few and homely
things. True, to all our nation of
flowers it matters little, when
we are borne into captivity,
whether the prison-house
which receives us be palace or
garret. Not to us can it signify
whether we perish in Sèvres
vase of royal blue, or in kitchen
pipkin of brown ware. Your
lordliest halls can seem but
dark, pent, noisome dungeons
to creatures born to live on the
wide plain, by the sunlit
meadow, in the hedgerow, or
the forest, or the green, leafy
garden-way; tossing always in
the joyous winds, and looking
always upward to the open sky.
But it is of little use to dwell on
this. You think that flowers, like
animals, were only created to be used and abused by you, and that
we, like your horse and dog, should be grateful when you honor us
by slaughter or starvation at your hands. To be brief, this room was
very humble, a mere attic, with one smaller still opening from it; but I
scarcely thought of its size or aspect. I looked at nothing but the
woman who had saved me. She was quite young; not very beautiful,
perhaps, except for wonderful soft azure eyes, and a mouth smiling
and glad, with lovely curves to the lips, and hair dark as a raven’s
wing, which was braided and bound close to her head. She was clad
very poorly, yet with an exquisite neatness and even grace; for she
was of the people no doubt, but of the people of France. Her voice
was very melodious; she had a silver cross on her bosom; and,
though her face was pale, it had health.
She was my friend, I felt sure. Yes, even when she held me and
pierced me with steel and murmured over me, “They say roses are
so hard to rear so, and you are such a little thing; but do grow to a
tree and live with me. Surely, you can if you try.”
She had wounded me sharply and thrust me into a tomb of baked
red clay filled with black and heavy mould. But I knew that I was
pierced to the heart that I might—though only a little offshoot
gathered to die in a day—strike root of my own and be strong, and
carry a crown of fresh blossoms. For she but dealt with me as your
world deals with you, when your heart aches and your brain burns,
and Fate stabs you, and says in your ear, “O fool! to be great you
must suffer.” You to your fate are thankless, being human; but I, a
rose, was not.
I tried to feel not utterly wretched in that little, dull clay cell; I tried to
forget my sweet, glad southern birthplace, and not to sicken and
swoon in the noxious gases of the city air. I did my best not to
shudder in the vapor of the stove, and not to grow pale in the
clammy heats of the street, and not to die of useless lamentation for
all that I had lost—for the noble tawny sunsets, and the sapphire
blue skies, and the winds all fragrant with the almond-tree flowers,
and the sunlight in which the yellow orioles flashed like gold.
I did my best to be content and show my gratitude all through a
parching autumn and a hateful winter; and with the spring a
wandering wind came and wooed me with low, amorous whispers—
came from the south, he said; and I learned that even in exile in an
attic window love may find us out and make for us a country and a
home.
So I lived and grew and was happy there against the small, dim
garret panes, and my lover from the south came, still faithful, year by
year; and all the voices round me said that I was fair—pale indeed,
and fragile of strength, as a creature torn from its own land and all its
friends must be, but contented and glad, and grateful to the God who
made me, because I had not lived in vain, but often saw sad eyes,
half blinded with toil and tears, smile at me when they had no other
cause for smiles.
“It is bitter to be mewed in a city,” said once to me an old, old vine
who had been thrust into the stones below and had climbed the
house wall, Heaven knew how, and had lived for half a century
jammed between buildings, catching a gleam of sunshine on his
dusty leaves once perhaps in a whole summer. “It is bitter for us. I
would rather have had the axe at my root and been burned. But
perhaps without us the poorest of people would never remember the
look of the fields. When they see a green leaf they laugh a little, and
then weep—some of them. We, the trees and the flowers, live in the
cities as those souls amongst them whom they call poets live in the
world,—exiled from heaven that by them the world may now and
then bethink itself of God.”
And I believe that the vine spoke truly. Surely, he who plants a green
tree in a city way plants a thought of God in many a human heart
arid with the dust of travail and clogged with the greeds of gold. So,
with my lover the wind and my neighbor the vine, I was content and
patient, and gave many hours of pleasure to many hard lives, and
brought forth many a blossom of sweetness in that little nook under
the roof.
Had my brothers and sisters done better, I wonder, living in gilded
balconies or dying in jewelled hands?
I cannot say: I can only tell of myself.
The attic in which I found it my fate to dwell was very high in the air,
set in one of the peaked roofs of the quarter of the Luxembourg, in a
very narrow street, populous,
and full of noise, in which
people of all classes, except
the rich, were to be found—in a
medley of artists, students,
fruit-sellers, workers in bronze
and ivory, seamstresses,
obscure actresses, and all the
creators, male and female, of
the thousand and one airy arts
of elegant nothingness which a
world of pleasure demands as
imperatively as a world of labor
demands its bread.
It would have been a street
horrible and hideous in any city
save Rome or Paris: in Rome it
would have been saved by
color and antiquity; in Paris it
was saved by color and grace.
Just a flash of a bright drapery,
just a gleam of a gay hue, just
some tender pink head of a
hydrangea, just some quaint
curl of some gilded woodwork,
just the green glimmer of my
friend the vine, just the snowy
sparkle of his neighbor the
waterspout,—just these, so
little and yet so much, made
the crooked passage a
bearable home, and gave it a
kinship with the glimpse of the
blue sky above its pent roofs.
O wise and true wisdom! to
redeem poverty with the charms of outline and of color, with the
green bough and the song of running water, and the artistic harmony
which is as possible to the rough-hewn pine-wood as in the polished
ebony. “It is of no use!” you cry. O fools! Which gives you perfume—
we, the roses, whose rich hues and matchless grace no human artist
can imitate, or the rose-trémière, which mocks us, standing stiff and
gaudy and scentless and erect? Grace and pure color and
cleanliness are the divinities that redeem the foulness and the
ignorance and the slavery of your crushed, coarse lives when you
have sight enough to see that they are divine.
In my little attic, in whose window I have passed my life, they were
known gods and honored; so that, despite the stovepipe, and the
poverty, and the little ill-smelling candle, and the close staircase
without, with the rancid oil in its lamps and its fetid faint odors, and
the refuse, and the gutters, and the gas in the street below, it was
possible for me, though a rose of Provence and a rose of the open
air freeborn, to draw my breath in it and to bear my blossoms, and to
smile when my lover the wind roused me from sleep with each
spring, and said in my ear, “Arise! for a new year is come.” Now, to
greet a new year with a smile, and not a sigh, one must be tranquil,
at least, if not happy.
Well, I and the lattice, and a few homely plants of saxafrage and
musk and balsam who bloomed there with me, and a canary who
hung in a cage amongst us, and a rustic creeper who clung to a few
strands of strained string and climbed to the roof and there talked all
day to the pigeons—we all belonged to the girl with the candid,
sweet eyes, and by name she was called Lili Kerrouel, and for her
bread she gilded and colored those little cheap boxes for
sweetmeats that they sell in the wooden booths at the fairs on the
boulevards, while the mirlitons whirl in their giddy go-rounds and the
merry horns of the charlatans challenge the populace. She was a girl
of the people: she could read, but I doubt if she could write. She had
been born of peasant parents in a Breton hamlet, and they had come
to Paris to seek work, and had found it for a while and prospered,
and then had fallen sick and lost it, and struggled for a while, and
then died, running the common course of so many lives amongst
you. They had left Lili alone at sixteen, or rather worse than alone—