produced another work; they also declare that my writings show progress, because they exhale a more cheerful spirit.... The thoroughly vicious people, the "beautiful souls," the false from top to toe, do not know in the least what to do with my books—consequently, with the beautiful consistency of all beautiful souls, they regard my work as beneath them. The cattle among my acquaintances, the mere Germans, leave me to understand, if you please, that they are not always of my opinion, though here and there they agree with me.... I have heard this said even about Zarathustra. "Feminism," whether in mankind or in man, is likewise a barrier to my writings; with it, no one could ever enter into this labyrinth of fearless knowledge. To this end, a man must never have spared himself, he must have been hard in his habits, in order to be good-humoured and merry among a host of inexorable truths. When I try to picture the character of a perfect reader, I always imagine a monster of courage and curiosity, as well as of suppleness, cunning, and prudence—in short, a born adventurer and explorer. After all, I could not describe better than Zarathustra has done unto whom I really address myself: unto whom alone would he reveal his riddle?
"Unto you, daring explorers and experimenters, and unto all who have ever embarked beneath cunning sails upon terrible seas;
"Unto you who revel in riddles and in twilight, whose souls are lured by flutes unto every treacherous abyss:
"For ye care not to grope your way along a thread with craven fingers; and where ye are able to guess, ye hate to argue?"
4
I will now pass just one or two general remarks about my art of style. To communicate a state an inner tension of pathos by means of signs, including the tempo of these signs,—that is the meaning of every style;