from "We Artists"

by Fredrich Nietzsche

----from all sides there is howling, threatening, crying,

and screaming at me, while in the lowest depths

the old earth shaker sings his aria [beware, Ariane

is not far away] hollow like a roaring bull; he

beats such an earth shaker's measure thereto,

that even the hearts of these weathered rock--monsters

tremble at the sound. Then, suddenly, as if born out of

nothingness, there appears before the portal of this

hellish labyrinth, only a few fathoms distant,--a great

sailing ship gliding silently along like a ghost.

Oh, this ghostly beauty! With what

enchantment it seizes me! What? Has all

the repose and silence in the world embarked here?

Does my happiness itself sit in this quiet place,

my happier ego, my second immortalized self?

Still not dead, but also no longer living?

As a ghost--like, calm, gazing, gliding, sweeping

neutral being? Similar to the ship, which,

with its white sails, like an immense butterfly,

passes over the dark sea! Yes! Passing over

existence! That is it! That would be it!--It seems

that the noise here has made me a visionary?

All great noise causes one to place happiness

in the calm and in the distance. When a man is in the midst

of his hubbub, in the midst of the breakers of

his plots and plans, he there sees perhaps calm,

enchanting beings glide past him, for whose happiness and

retirement he longs---they are women. He almost

thinks that there with the women dwells his better self;

that in these calm places even the loudest breakers

become still as death and life itself a dream of life.