http://digitalphilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/06/09/this-book-could-reign/ Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:46:50 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 http://digitalphilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/06/09/this-book-could-reign/#comment-1380 ecko4inc Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:31:02 +0000 http://digitalphilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/06/09/this-book-could-reign/#comment-1380 "L'ordre du jour pour le roi.- The day begins: let us begin to order for this day the business and the festivals of our most merciful master who is still deigning to rest. His majesty has bad weather today: we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak of the weather - but we shall be a little mor solemn about our business than would otherwise be necessary and a litle more festive about the festivals. Perhaps his majesty will even be ill: we breakfast we shall present the latest good news of the preceding evening, the arrival of M. Montaigne who jokes so agreeably about his illness; he suffers from a stone. We shall recieve a few persons (persons! what would that puffed-up old frog say, who will be among them, if he heard this word! 'I am not a person,' he would say, 'but always the substance itself') - and this reception will take longer than anyone finds agreeable. That is reason enough to tell of the poet who wrote on the door: 'Whoever enters here, honours me; whoever does not - pleases me.' what a courteous way of expressing a discourtesy. And perhaps this poet is altogether right to be discourteous: it is said that his poems are better than the poet. Let him write many more than and withdraw from the world as much as possible - which is, after all, the meaning of his civil incivillity. Conversely a prince is always saying more than his 'verse,' even if - but what am I saying? We are chatting and the whole court thinks that we are already at work and racking our brains: there is no window in which anyone ever sees a light burn before ours. Listen! Wasn't that the bell? Damn! the day and the dance begin and we don't know the schedule! we have to improvise - all the world improvises its day. Let us proceed today as all the world does! At that my strange morning dream vanished, probably a victim of the hard strokes of the tower clock which announced the fifth hour with all of its accustomed gravity. It seems to me on this occasion the god of dreams was pleased to make fun of my habit of beginning the day by ordering it and making it tolerable for myself; and it is possible that I sometimes done this too formally, as if I were a prince." Mr Nietzsche The Gay Science “L’ordre du jour pour le roi.- The day begins: let us begin to order for this day the business and the festivals of our most merciful master who is still deigning to rest. His majesty has bad weather today: we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak of the weather – but we shall be a little mor solemn about our business than would otherwise be necessary and a litle more festive about the festivals. Perhaps his majesty will even be ill: we breakfast we shall present the latest good news of the preceding evening, the arrival of M. Montaigne who jokes so agreeably about his illness; he suffers from a stone. We shall recieve a few persons (persons! what would that puffed-up old frog say, who will be among them, if he heard this word! ‘I am not a person,’ he would say, ‘but always the substance itself’) – and this reception will take longer than anyone finds agreeable. That is reason enough to tell of the poet who wrote on the door: ‘Whoever enters here, honours me; whoever does not – pleases me.’ what a courteous way of expressing a discourtesy. And perhaps this poet is altogether right to be discourteous: it is said that his poems are better than the poet. Let him write many more than and withdraw from the world as much as possible – which is, after all, the meaning of his civil incivillity. Conversely a prince is always saying more than his ‘verse,’ even if – but what am I saying? We are chatting and the whole court thinks that we are already at work and racking our brains: there is no window in which anyone ever sees a light burn before ours.
Listen! Wasn’t that the bell? Damn! the day and the dance begin and we don’t know the schedule! we have to improvise – all the world improvises its day. Let us proceed today as all the world does!
At that my strange morning dream vanished, probably a victim of the hard strokes of the tower clock which announced the fifth hour with all of its accustomed gravity. It seems to me on this occasion the god of dreams was pleased to make fun of my habit of beginning the day by ordering it and making it tolerable for myself; and it is possible that I sometimes done this too formally, as if I were a prince.”
Mr Nietzsche
The Gay Science

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