To the Mirror Image

Dear Mirror Image,

You are astonished that I address you ceremonially, and that I avoid familiarity in my salutation.¹ It is done seriously and deliberately. You live with the delusion that you are me. And you are not the only one to take yourself for me: the whole world shares this mistake, and knows nothing of any difference between you and me, and nothing at all about my existing outside your world. I know, however, that you only seem to be me. I see the deception with which you imitate my lineaments, my movements, my speech, to present me to the world, this mirror world, that never is able nor wants to recognize man himself, but only his soulless reflection.

Therefore, I intend to separate myself from you here and now; I want to speak with you and settle accounts with you. You shall answer to me, me myself; I who know myself to be not an other, as you are wont to portray me. Hence, there is no connection between us now, no sparing or holding back. Therefore I dissociate myself from you and beseech you to avoid all treacherous comradeship and only aspire to be nothing else than what you are in reality: a mirror image, product of unfamiliar brains, which I confront with my own self.

But how do I enter this society, the society of contemporary musicians? Do I belong here? Mind you, there are a number of very illustrious names among them, whom I would certainly never consider to place myself alongside. I believe, however, that as a faithful minstrel I might nevertheless deserve a little place in the corner, and that one should not take issue so strongly with a couple of wrong notes; for who could say he has always played correctly and well? Thus I join the ranks at the tail-end, trusting that any differences, seen from the proper distance, are not that enormous, and that it is not at all our intention here to find inequalities of measures and practices, but to recognize the particular idiosyncrasies of our inner motives.

And what is a poor writer to do? Of course, his books remain and could bear witness to him, if they were read, understood, and quoted properly. In reality, though, they are rarely read, not at all understood, and only incorrectly quoted. Even worse off is the critic, for each critical word about anybody will be paid back double. But how then does a theater director and producer fare? He falls in among thieves, his oeuvre blows away, and that is the end of him, even if he was the best. Mirror image, you do not suit me! You suggest that I find you not handsome enough for me? On the contrary, you are sometimes too handsome. For indeed: uncomprehending critics may annoy us, but insincere flatterers are repugnant.

So that's not what it is I dislike about you, mirror image. You lack something that belongs to me, an attribute, the only one that I value and that always accompanies me—Diogenes' Lantern. That's what's missing in you, and so I say: mirror image, something is not right with you.

The tasks of men are diverse, and similarly diverse are the resources provided to them by nature: to one, it gives the gift of inquiry, to another, the genius of creation, and so on in the most manifold varieties. To me, it gave the longing for mankind, the urge to look for it everywhere; and from it, from the idea of its existence, to recognize, to judge, and always to make others aware of this basic measure of value as such. I would not have known what else to cling to, if not to this one primal notion of the essence of all values, which appeared to me by and by in the most diverse phenomena, and seemed to me more and more glorious, and in its applicability more and more inexhaustible, until it became wholly the guiding principle of my thinking and acting.

But which kind of...