12. NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Turin, May 4, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
What you tell me gives me great pleasure and—let me confess it—still more surprise. Be sure I shall owe you for it: you know, hermits are not given to forgetting.
Meanwhile I hope my photograph will have reached you. It goes without saying that I took steps, not exactly to be photographed (for I am extremely distrustful of haphazard photographs), but to abstract a photograph from somebody who had one of me. Perhaps I have succeeded; I have not yet heard. If not, I shall avail myself of my next visit to Munich (this autumn probably) to be taken again.
The Hymn to Life will start on its journey to Copenhagen one of these days. We philosophers are never more grateful than when we are mistaken for artists. I am assured, moreover, by the best judges that the Hymn is thoroughly fit for performance, singable, and sure in its effect (—clear in form; this praise gave me the greatest pleasure). Mottl, the excellent court conductor at Carlsruhe (the conductor of the Bayreuth festival performances, you know), has given me hopes of a performance.
I have just heard from Italy that the point of view of my second Thought out of Season has been very honourably mentioned in a survey of German literature contributed by the Viennese scholar, Dr. von Zackauer, at the invitation of the Archivio storico of Florence. He concludes his paper with it.
These last weeks at Turin, where I shall stay till June 5, have turned out better than any I have known for years, above all more philosophic. Almost every day for one or two hours I have reached such a pitch of energy as to be able to view my whole conception from top to bottom; so that the immense multiplicity of problems lies spread out beneath me, as though in relief and clear in its outlines. This requires a maximum of strength, for which I had almost given up hope. It all hangs together; years ago it was already on the right course; one builds one's philosophy like a beaver, one is forced to and does not know it: but one has to see all this, as I have now seen it, in order to believe it.
I am so relieved, so strengthened, in such good humour—I hang a little farcical tail on to the most serious things. What is the reason of all this? Have I not the good north winds to thank for it, the north winds which do not always come from the Alps?—they come now and then even from Copenhagen!
With greetings,
Your gratefully devoted,
NIETZSCHE.