Essays of Schopenhauer | Page 7

engrossed with the delusion of the moment, that my
mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly stuck to its work

through the course of a long life. And while the lapse of time has not
been able to make me doubt the worth of my work, neither has the lack
of sympathy; for I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the
absurd and senseless, stand in universal admiration and honour, and I
bethought myself that if it were not the case, those who are capable of
recognising the genuine and right are so rare that we may look for them
in vain for some twenty years, then those who are capable of producing
it could not be so few that their works afterwards form an exception to
the perishableness of earthly things; and thus would be lost the reviving
prospect of posterity which every one who sets before himself a high
aim requires to strengthen him."[3]
When Schopenhauer started for Italy Goethe had provided him with a
letter of introduction to Lord Byron, who was then staying at Venice,
but Schopenhauer never made use of the letter; he said that he hadn't
the courage to present himself. "Do you know," he says in a letter,
"three great pessimists were in Italy at the same time--Byron, Leopardi,
and myself! And yet not one of us has made the acquaintance of the
other." He remained in Italy until June 1819, when he proceeded to
Milan, where he received distressing news from his sister to the effect
that a Dantzic firm, in which she and her mother had invested all their
capital, and in which he himself had invested a little, had become
bankrupt. Schopenhauer immediately proposed to share his own
income with them. But later, when the defaulting firm offered to its
creditors a composition of thirty per cent, Schopenhauer would accept
nothing less than seventy per cent in the case of immediate payment, or
the whole if the payment were deferred; and he was so indignant at his
mother and sister falling in with the arrangement of the debtors, that he
did not correspond with them again for eleven years. With reference to
this affair he wrote: "I can imagine that from your point of view my
behaviour may seem hard and unfair. That is a mere illusion which
disappears as soon as you reflect that all I want is merely not to have
taken from me what is most rightly and incontestably mine, what,
moreover, my whole happiness, my freedom, my learned leisure
depend upon;--a blessing which in this world people like me enjoy so
rarely that it would be almost as unconscientious as cowardly not to
defend it to the uttermost and maintain it by every exertion. You say,

perhaps, that if all your creditors were of this way of thinking, I too
should come badly off. But if all men thought as I do, there would be
much more thinking done, and in that case probably there would be
neither bankruptcies, nor wars, nor gaming tables."[4]
In July 1819, when he was at Heidelberg, the idea occurred to him of
turning university lecturer, and took practical shape the following
summer, when he delivered a course of lectures on philosophy at the
Berlin University. But the experiment was not a success; the course
was not completed through the want of attendance, while Hegel at the
same time and place was lecturing to a crowded and enthusiastic
audience. This failure embittered him, and during the next few years
there is little of any moment in his life to record. There was one
incident, however, to which his detractors would seem to have attached
more importance than it was worth, but which must have been
sufficiently disturbing to Schopenhauer--we refer to the Marquet affair.
It appears on his returning home one day he found three women
gossiping outside his door, one of whom was a seamstress who
occupied another room in the house. Their presence irritated
Schopenhauer (whose sensitiveness in such matters may be estimated
from his essay "On Noise"), who, finding them occupying the same
position on another occasion, requested them to go away, but the
seamstress replied that she was an honest person and refused to move.
Schopenhauer disappeared into his apartments and returned with a stick.
According to his own account, he offered his arm to the woman in
order to take her out; but she would not accept it, and remained where
she was. He then threatened to put her out, and carried his threat into
execution by seizing her round the waist and putting her out. She
screamed, and attempted to return. Schopenhauer now pushed her out;
the woman fell, and raised the whole house. This woman, Caroline
Luise Marquet, brought an action against him