Volume Ii Part 42 (1/2)
SOCRATES.-If all goes well, the time will come when, in order to advance themselves on the path of moral reason, men will rather take up the _Memorabilia_ of Socrates than the Bible, and when Montaigne and Horace will be used as pioneers and guides for the understanding of Socrates, the simplest and most enduring of interpretative sages. In him converge the roads of the most different philosophic modes of life, which are in truth the modes of the different temperaments, crystallised by reason and habit and all ultimately directed towards the delight in life and in self. The apparent conclusion is that the most peculiar thing about Socrates was his share in all the temperaments. Socrates excels the founder of Christianity by virtue of his merry style of seriousness and by that wisdom of sheer roguish pranks which const.i.tutes the best state of soul in a man.
Moreover, he had a superior intelligence.
87.
LEARNING TO WRITE WELL.-The age of good speaking is over, because the age of city-state culture is over. The limit allowed by Aristotle to the great city-in which the town-crier must be able to make himself heard by the whole a.s.sembled community-troubles us as little as do any city-communities, us who even wish to be understood beyond the boundaries of nations. Therefore every one who is of a good European turn of mind must learn to _write_ well, and to write better and better. He cannot help himself, he must learn that: even if he was born in Germany, where bad writing is looked upon as a national privilege. Better writing means better thinking; always to discover matter more worthy of communication; to be able to communicate it properly; to be translateable into the tongues of neighbouring nations; to make oneself comprehensible to foreigners who learn our language; to work with the view of making all that is good common property, and of giving free access everywhere to the free; finally, to pave the way for that still remote state of things, when the great task shall come for good Europeans-guidance and guardians.h.i.+p of the universal world-culture.-Whoever preaches the opposite doctrine of not troubling about good writing and good reading (both virtues grow together and decline together) is really showing the peoples a way of becoming more and more _national_. He is intensifying the malady of this century, and is a foe to good Europeans, a foe to free spirits.
88.
THE THEORY OF THE BEST STYLE.-The theory of the best style may at one time be the theory of finding the expression by which we transfer every mood of ours to the reader and the listener. At another, it may be the theory of finding expressions for the more desirable human moods, the communication and transference of which one desires most-for the mood of a man moved from the depth of his heart, intellectually cheerful, bright, and sincere, who has conquered his pa.s.sions. This will be the theory of the best style, a theory that corresponds to the good man.
89.
PAYING ATTENTION TO MOVEMENT.-The movement of the sentences shows whether the author be tired. Individual expressions may nevertheless be still strong and good, because they were invented earlier and for their own sake, when the thought first flashed across the author's mind. This is frequently the case with Goethe, who too often dictated when he was tired.
90.
”ALREADY” AND ”STILL.”-_A._ German prose is still very young. Goethe declares that Wieland is its father.
_B._ So young and already so ugly!
_C._ But, so far as I am aware, Bishop Ulfilas already wrote German prose, which must therefore be fifteen hundred years old.
_B._ So old and still so ugly!
91.