lancholy, hasty
life, hunted to premature death, then you would have crushed him even
sooner than you did. You have not rendered assistance to a single one
of our great geniuses--and now upon that fact you wish to build up the
theory that none of them shall ever be helped in future? For each of
them, however, up to this very moment, you have always been the
'resistance of the stupid world' that Goethe speaks of in his
"Epilogue to the Bell"; towards each of them you acted the part of
apathetic dullards or jealous narrow-hearts or malignant egotists. In
spite of you they created their immortal works, against you they
directed their attacks, and thanks to you they died so prematurely,
their tasks only half accomplished, blunted and dulled and shattered
in the battle. Who can tell to what these heroic men were destined to
attain if only that true German spirit had gathered them together
within the protecting walls of a powerful institution?--that spirit
which, without the help of some such institution, drags out an
isolated, debased, and degraded existence. All those great men were
utterly ruined; and it is only an insane belief in the Hegelian
'reasonableness of all happenings' which would absolve you of any
responsibility in the matter. And not those men alone! Indictments are
pouring forth against you from every intellectual province: whether I
look at the talents of our poets, philosophers, painters, or
sculptors--and not only in the case of gifts of the highest order--I
everywhere see immaturity, overstrained nerves, or prematurely
exhausted energies, abilities wasted and nipped in the bud; I
everywhere feel that 'resistance of the stupid world,' in other words,
_your_ guiltiness. That is what I am talking about when I speak of
lacking educational establishments, and why I think those which at
present claim the name in such a pitiful condition. Whoever is pleased
to call this an 'ideal desire,' and refers to it as 'ideal' as if he
were trying to get rid of it by praising me, deserves the answer that
the present system is a scandal and a disgrace, and that the man who
asks for warmth in the midst of ice and snow must indeed get angry if
he hears this referred to as an 'ideal desire.' The matter we are now
discussing is concerned with clear, urgent, and palpably evident
realities: a man who knows anything of the question feels that there
is a need which must be seen to, just like cold and hunger. But the
man who is not