Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsthe semi-thinker and semi-artist has exhaled over it t h e vapour of hisinadequacy; while nothing better or happier can befall a man than tobe in the proximity of one of those victors who, precisely becausethey have thought most deeply, must love what is most living and, assages, incline in the end to the beautiful. They speak truly, they donot stammer, and do not chatter about what they have heard; theyare active and live truly and not the uncanny masquerade men areaccustomed to live: which is why in their proximity we for once feelhuman and natural and might exclaim with Goethe: 'How gloriousand precious a living thing is! how well adapted to the conditions itlives in, how true, how full of being!'*I am describing nothing but the first, as it were physiological,impression Schopenhauer produced upon me, that magical outpouringof the inner strength of one natural creature on to anotherthat follows the first and most fleeting encounter; and when I subsequentlyanalyse that impression I discover it to be compounded ofthree elements, the elements of his honesty, his cheerfulness and hissteadfastness. He is honest because he .6peaks and writes to himselfand for himself, cheerful because he has conquered the hardest taskby thinking, and steadfast because he has to be. His strength risesstraight and calmly upwards like a flame when there is no wind,imperturbably, without restless wavering. He finds his way everytime before we have so much as noticed that he has been seeking it;as though compelled by a law of gravity he runs on ahead, so firmand agile, so inevitably. And whoever has felt what it means to discoveramong our tragelaphine ment of today a whole, complete,self-moving, unconstrained and unhampered natural being willunderstand my joy and amazement when I discovered Schopenhauer:I sensed that in him I had discovered that educator and philosopherI had sought for so long. But I had discovered him only in the formof a book, and that was a great deficiency. So I strove all the harder tosee through the book and to imagine the living man whose great testamentI had to read and who promised to make his heirs only thosewho would and could be more than merely his readers: namely hissons and pupils.3I profit from a philosopher only insofar as he can be an example.That he is capable of drawing whole nations after him through thisClFrom the Italienische Reise, 9 October 1786.t'Tragelaphen-Menschheit'. A 'tragelaph' is a 'goat-stag', i.e. a 'horned beast'.136