The subject: my division of women into mothers and prostitutes.
If you have the inclination to do so, and do not fear to become disturbed in your own thoughts about this, then answer me as quickly as possible with a yes. . . .
(Postmark: 10th March, 1903)
I do not completely share your view of B. But it is good how you characterised mental modesty as being plainly of the least worth.
To coitology:
The more love and the less pure sexual excitation there is, the more decent is the child (no criminal as man, no prostitute but rather mother as woman).
Gender, I believe, is not decided by the degree of “excitement”. It rests upon the greater coveting, respective to love, and it decides likeness, not gender.
Concerning mother-prostitute I am thus again doubtful . . .
Vienna, 30th March, 1903. (In the tramway. )
Braumüller prints my book!
It will probably be finished by the end of May at the latest.
Will you go with me Friday to see Duse56 as Hedda Gabler? If yes, then I will obtain two seats.
56 Duse, Eleonora: (b. Oct. 3, 1858, near or in Vigevano, Lombardy, Austrian Empire [now in Italy]—d. April 21, 1924, Pittsburgh, Pa. , U. S. ), Italian actress who found her great interpretive roles in the heroines of the Italian playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio and of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. [Trans]
I also have a month, day and night, to do.
Weininger
23rd April, 1903.
Thus finally behind you! It pleases me greatly, even more, what will come now . . .
I however still have frightfully much to do, swimming in an ocean of first, second, and third proofs, and no longer writing with blood, but red ink (an antithesis to Nietzsche).
Yours O. W.
Rome, 23 July, 1903. (Picture postcard. )
[Rome, the landscape from the cupola of St Peter’s Basilica. (The statues of the saints on the roof. )]
I had to go through Rome, where I have been staying since yesterday at midday. I never thought a city could have such an effect on me.
Castel Sant’Angelo (Hadrian’s Mausoleum)!
Syracuse, 3rd August, 1903
Instead of waiting for a long time in Ancona for a ship, I have travelled here via Rome, Naples, Messina, Taormina (one of the most beautiful places on earth), and Catania (Etna).
In Rome I heard Il Trovatore, which contains the most splendid portrayal of heart-beats, and I am more than ever of the opinion that Verdi was a genius. Two nights ago, in a magical place on the beach by the moonlit, Ionic sea, between the papyrus grove of the Arethus spring and the sailing ships of the harbour, I heard the Corso military band play the cavalleria rusticana.
At the time he wrote that, Mascagni was great. I have now seen the whole area in which it takes place, went to Francofonte not far away, and was very pleased by how accurately I had pictured it: the fairest grain (la cirāsa). It is the most fertile region of Europe. I have sought and found a wealth of information about the Sicilian peasant duels, and enjoyed instruction about the art itself from a goatherd, who blew earnestly and truly on his self-carved syrinx – nevertheless, and certainly very badly, a melody from The Barber of Seville, which did not suit the place in the least. – But do not envy me too greatly if what I have written you should also fill you with longing.
Syracuse is the most singular place in the world. I can only be born here or die – not live.
On Etna, it was the imposing shamelessness of the crater which gave me the most to think about. A crater reminds one of a mandrill’s behind.
Nevertheless, write me about yourself and what you are doing, you’ve promised and till now not held it.
I can only highly recommend the pursuit of Beethoven to you. He is the absolute opposite of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare or being like Shakespeare is something, which I see ever clearer, that every great person must, and does, overcome. With Shakespeare the world has no centre, with Beethoven it has one. – — —
So, I await news from Probus Court! And give my regards to Schiffmann also!
Otto.
Syracuse, 10th August, 1903.
I wish to hear, by all means, in what way things are now going especially badly for you. Your fear of thereby disturbing a special feeling of happiness or elevation in me is unfounded. . .
I ask you, write to me right soon! about “Sex and Character”; and tell me above all your true opinion about the worth of it all; I would be so much more thankful to you, the sooner it would come. I place much importance on it . . . And please, send me finally the copy of the Sicilian Turiddu song. It will be a disappointment for you, that Turiddu is an abbreviation of Salvadore (Salva) –torello. That does not suit.
Reggio (Calabria), 22nd August, 1903.
The enclosures, apart from the usual, but good picture postcard (you must imagine the houses as all yellow like Schönbrunn, a perfectly blue sea and an absolutely cloudless sky), are:
Two blossoms of a papyrus plant and a small piece of bast from its stem, which you have to ascribe to the fact that a plant was cut off against my express will and without my knowledge. This was done by the skipper of the rowboat in which I was ferried on the papyrus and bamboo thicketed river Anapo up to its source at the famous Cyane (which I unreservedly [and certainly also by boat] recommend to you if you come to Syracuse).
The other picture postcard is even made from the papyrus that grows here, and offers a very poor view of the ruins of the ancient Greek theater, that place where the sunset is, among all places that I know, the soonest endured.
Read “Peer Gynt” finally — do this favour, if not for yourself, then for me. That is, you could learn to develop something out of it that is but very weak in you now.
Also read “Emperor” and “Galilean”! There are magnificent passages here also (but not to be compared with the other!)
If Ibsen had continued to want such greatness as in “Peer Gynt”, he would have become greater than Goethe; I have seldom gotten to know a work where, over the course of time, I would have taken back so few of the praises lavished on it.
Incidentally, it betrays weakness, not to want to read so as not to be influenced. One should become stronger by reading, not the opposite.
I will now write nothing for a long time. Address: Reggio, Calabria, ferma in posta. To there you could finally send me a detailed criticism of “Sex and Character”. Recently there have been some such of the inferior type published, which Braumüller sent to me, so that I have some need thereof.
Write to me about how you are doing.
Otto W.
27th August, 1903.
Picture postcard from Sorrento.
I would like to once more call your attention to what I wrote about Shakespeare and Beethoven. That is, you occupy yourself with the problem of the will, which is the same basis out of which Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet”. The will is what gives time its direction, that is: past and future separated from each other. That is why only in Hamlet did Shakespeare gain a sense for the meaning of life and of time . . .
28 August, 1903
C’è qualche cosa in disordine teco! (Mi dispiace molto, ch’io non So la causa. È la stessa, che ti proibisce di essere produttivo. Credo, che tu hai qualche cosa di un azzardista: tu vuoi troppo come dono regalato dal destino. Tu hai messo troppo e sperato troppo dall’amore di donne); ci vuole la solitudine più che la fuga in società d’altrui; è bisogna, che tu pensi più su di te, con coraggio sempre e dovunque. Questo in italiano, perchè altra gente potrebbe leggere la cartolina. 57 By the way, thank you for your letter and the copy of the song. I left Calabria already on Monday and arrived in Naples today. (Paestum — Salerno — Amalfi — Sorrento. )
Credi: se un uomo come tu o io non è produttivo, non si deve aspettare il momento, che venga di nuovo, ma cercare la ragione; c’è sempre una colpa. 58
57 “There is something awry with thee (I am very sorry not to know the cause. It is the same one which is preventing you from being productive. I think you have something of the gambler in you: you want too much bestowed upon you by destiny. You have invested and hoped too much in women’s love); it is better to live in solitude than to take refuge in other people’s society; and you ought to think more about yourself, with courage always and everywhere. I am writing this in Italian, because other people might read the postcard. By the way, thank you for your letter and the copy of the song. I left Calabria already on Monday and arrived in Naples today. (Paestum — Salerno — Amalfi — Sorrento. )” [Trans]
58 “Believe me: when a man like you or me stops being productive, you should not wait for it to come back, but look for a reason. There is always a fault. ” [Trans]
V
August Strindberg’s Letters about Weininger
After Weininger’s death I turned to August Strindberg59. As, out of Strindberg’s letters dedicated to the memory of the deceased, the deep connection is
