Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsthe property of mankind, to lay it down fo r a posterity better able tojudge it, has become to him a goal which takes precedence over allother goals and for the sake of which he wears the crown of thornswhich shall one day blossom into a laurel-wreath: his efforts are concentratedon the safeguarding of his work just as decidedly as arethose of the insect in its final stage on safeguarding its eggs and oncaring for the brood whose existence it will never know: it depositsthe eggs where it knows for sure they will one day find life andnourishment, and dies contented.This goal, which takes precedence over al l other goals, inspireshim to ever new inventions; the more clearly he feels himself in conflictwith his most unresponsive age and its utter unwillingness to listen,the more abundantly does he draw on the well of his demonic geniusfo r communication. Gradually, however, even this age begins to giveway before his unwearying promptings and enticements and lendshim its ear. Whenever an opportunity, great or small, of elucidatinghis thoughts by practical example appeared in the distance, Wagnerwas prepared for it: he applied his ideas to the prcumstances obtainingand made them speak even out of the most inadequate embodiments.Whenever an even halfway receptive soul appeared he casthis seed into it. He attached his hopes to things at which the coldobserver shrugged his shoulders; he was willing to deceive himself ahundred times if it meant being once in the right as against thisobserver. As the wise man traffics with living men only so far as hecan thereby augment the treasury of his knowledge, so it almostseems as though the artist can have no traffic with the men of his ageexcept that through which he can perpetuate his art: to love himmeans to love his art and its perpetuation, and he likewise understandsonly one kind of hatred directed at himself, that which seeksto break down the bridges between his art and its fu ture. The pupilsWagner reared for himself, the individual musicians and performersto whom he spoke a word or illustrated a gesture, the great and modestorchestras he directed, the towns which saw him earnestly at work,the princes and women who, half timidly, half with love, participatedin his plans, the various European countries of which hewas temporarily the judge and bad conscience: all gradually becamean echo of his idea, of his inexhaustible striving for a fruitfulness inthe future; if this echo often returned to him distorted and confused,in the end it grew to the overwhelming chorus which the overwhelmingintensity of the message he cried to the world was bound finally toevoke; and soon it will be impossible not to hear him or to mis-246