Essays of Schopenhauer | Page 6

ever a
conciliatory son, or a companionable person to live with; in fact, there
is plenty to show that he possessed trying and irritating qualities, and
that he assumed an attitude of criticism towards his mother that could
not in any circumstances be agreeable. On the other hand, Anselm
Feuerbach in his Memoirs furnishes us with a scarcely prepossessing
picture of Mrs. Schopenhauer: "Madame Schopenhauer," he writes, "a
rich widow. Makes profession of erudition. Authoress. Prattles much
and well, intelligently; without heart and soul. Self-complacent, eager
after approbation, and constantly smiling to herself. God preserve us
from women whose mind has shot up into mere intellect."
Schopenhauer meanwhile was working out his philosophical system,
the idea of his principal philosophical work. "Under my hands," he
wrote in 1813, "and still more in my mind grows a work, a philosophy
which will be an ethics and a metaphysics in one:--two branches which
hitherto have been separated as falsely as man has been divided into
soul and body. The work grows, slowly and gradually aggregating its
parts like the child in the womb. I became aware of one member, one
vessel, one part after another. In other words, I set each sentence down
without anxiety as to how it will fit into the whole; for I know it has all
sprung from a single foundation. It is thus that an organic whole
originates, and that alone will live.... Chance, thou ruler of this
sense-world! Let me live and find peace for yet a few years, for I love
my work as the mother her child. When it is matured and has come to
birth, then exact from me thy duties, taking interest for the
postponement. But, if I sink before the time in this iron age, then grant
that these miniature beginnings, these studies of mine, be given to the
world as they are and for what they are: some day perchance will arise
a kindred spirit, who can frame the members together and 'restore' the
fragment of antiquity."[1]
By March 1817 he had completed the preparatory work of his system,
and began to put the whole thing together; a year later Die Welt als
Wille und Vorstellung: vier B�cher, nebst einem Anhange, der die
Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie enth�lt ("The World as Will and

Idea; four books, with an appendix containing a criticism on the
philosophy of Kant"). Some delay occurring in the publication,
Schopenhauer wrote one of his characteristically abusive letters to
Brockhaus, his publisher, who retorted "that he must decline all further
correspondence with one whose letters, in their divine coarseness and
rusticity, savoured more of the cabman than of the philosopher," and
concluded with a hope that his fears that the work he was printing
would be good for nothing but waste paper, might not be realised.[2]
The work appeared about the end of December 1818 with 1819 on the
title-page. Schopenhauer had meanwhile proceeded in September to
Italy, where he revised the final proofs. So far as the reception of the
work was concerned there was reason to believe that the fears of
Brockhaus would be realised, as, in fact, they came practically to be.
But in the face of this general want of appreciation, Schopenhauer had
some crumbs of consolation. His sister wrote to him in March (he was
then staying at Naples) that Goethe "had received it with great joy,
immediately cut the thick book, and began instantly to read it. An hour
later he sent me a note to say that he thanked you very much and
thought that the whole book was good. He pointed out the most
important passages, read them to us, and was greatly delighted.... You
are the only author whom Goethe has ever read seriously, it seems to
me, and I rejoice." Nevertheless the book did not sell. Sixteen years
later Brockhaus informed Schopenhauer that a large number of copies
had been sold at waste paper price, and that he had even then a few in
stock. Still, during the years 1842-43, Schopenhauer was contemplating
the issue of a second edition and making revisions for that purpose;
when he had completed the work he took it to Brockhaus, and agreed to
leave the question of remuneration open. In the following year the
second edition was issued (500 copies of the first volume, and 750 of
the second), and for this the author was to receive no remuneration.
"Not to my contemporaries," says Schopenhauer with fine conviction in
his preface to this edition, "not to my compatriots--to mankind I
commit my now completed work, in the confidence that it will not be
without value for them, even if this should be late recognised, as is
commonly the lot of what is good. For it cannot have been for the
passing generation,