Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

David Strauss, the confessor and the writerOf the goddess truth, the few who have seen her affirm that she hasbeen naked: and perhaps in the eyes of those who have not seen herbut accept the word of those few who have, nakedness or lightlycladnessis in itself a proof of truth, even if only cin::umstantial proof.Merely to suspect that this is the case works to the advantage of anauthor's ambition: someone sees something naked - 'suppose itshould be the truth!' he says to himself, and assumes a more solemnexpression than the one he usually wears. But an author has alreadyattained much if he has constrained his reader to regard him moresolemnly than he does some other, more heavily clad author. It isthe way to one day becoming a 'classic': and Strauss himself tells usthat he has 'been accorded the unsought honour of being regardedas a kind of classic prose-writer', that he has thus arrived at the goalof his journey. Strauss the genius runs about the streets as a 'classic'disguised as a lightly clad goddess, and Strauss the philistine is, toemploy an original locution of this genius, at all costs to be 'decreedout of fa shion' or 'thrown out never to return' .Alas, the philistine does return, again and again, despite all suchdecrees and throwings-out! Alas, the face, twisted into a semblanceof Voltaire or Lessing, from time to time snaps back into its old, honest,original shape! Alas, the mask of genius all too often falls off, and theMaster never wears a more vexed expression, his gestures are neverstiffer, than when he has just attempted to imitate the stride of geniusand to make his eyes flash with the fire of genius. Ours is a coldclime, and ir is precisely because he goes around so lightly clad thathe runs the risk of catching cold more often and more gravely thanothers; that the others then notice all this may be acutely painful, butif he is ever to be cured he will have to submit to the following publicdiagnosis: There was once a Strauss, a brave, rigorous and austerelyclad scholar-, whom we found as congenial as anyone who in Germanyserves truth seriously and with vigour and knows how to stay withinhis own limitations; he who is now celebrated by public opinion asDavid Strauss has become someone else: it may be the fault of thetheologians that he has become this someone else; enough, we findthe game he now plays with the mask of genius as repellent or ludicrousas we found his fo rmer seriousness evocative of seriousnessand sympathy. When he now informs us: 'it would also be an act ofingratitude towards my genius if I did not rejoice that, beside the giftof unsparing destructive criticism, I have also been granted the innocentpleasure of artistic creativity' , it may surprise him to know thatdespite this self-testimonial there are people who maintain the47