Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsthey were certainly not philistines. In his search to procure thispleasure he is often undecided whether he ought to imitate the bolddialectical impetuosity of Lessing or whether it might not be betterto comport himself as a satyr-like free-spirited elder in the manner ofVoltaire. Whenever he sits down to write he always composes his featuresas though he were about to have his portrait painted: sometimeshe makes his face resemble Lessing's, sometimes Voltaire's.When we read his praise of the Voltairean style (p. 217), he seems tobe expressly admonishing the present for not having long sincerecognized what it possesses in the modern Voltaire: 'the merits ofhis style', Strauss says, 'are everywhere the same: simple naturalness,transparent clarity, lively flexibility, pleasing charm. Warmth andemphasis are not wanting where they are needed; hatred of pomposityand affectation came from Voltaire's innermost nature; just aswhen, on the other hand, passion and impetuosity lowered the toneof his discourse, the fault lay not with the stylist but with the humanbeing in him.' To judge from this, Strauss is well aware of thesignificance of simplicity of style: it has always been the mark of genius,which also possesses the privilege of expressing itself simply,naturally and with naivety. It therefore betrays no common ambitionwhen an author chooses a simple style: for, although manywill see what such an author would like to be taken for, there arenonetheless many who are so obliging as to take him for it. But if anauthor possesses genius he betrays it in more than siplicity andprecision of expression: his abundant power plays with his materialeven when it is difficult and dangerous. Stiff and timid steps will getno one along unfamiliar paths littered with a thousand abysses: thegenius, however, runs nimbly along such paths with daring orelegant strides and disdains cautiously to measure his steps.That the problems Strauss passes in review are serious and dreadfulones, and have been treated as such by the wise of every age, isknown to Strauss himself, and yet he calls his book lightly clad. Of allthe dread and gloomy seriousness of reflection into which one isplunged perforce when faced with the questions of the value of existenceand the duties of man there is not the slightest suspicion as ourgifted Master goes fluttering past us, 'lightly clad and intentionallyso' more lightly clad, indeed, than is his Rousseau, who, heinforms us, denuded his lower half and draped his upper, whileGoethe, he says, draped his lower half and denuded his upper.Wholly naive geniuses, it seems, do not drape themselves at all, soperhaps the expression 'lightly clad' is only a euphemism for naked.46