for determining and collecting many
little common facts, and deducing conclusions from them; as exceptions,
they are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards
those who are "the rules." After all, they have more to do than merely
to perceive:--in effect, they have to BE something new, they have to
SIGNIFY something new, they have to REPRESENT new values! The gulf
between knowledge and capacity is perhaps greater, and also more
mysterious, than one thinks: the capable man in the grand style, the
creator, will possibly have to be an ignorant person;--while on the
other hand, for scientific discoveries like those of Darwin, a certain
narrowness, aridity, and industrious carefulness (in short, something
English) may not be unfavourable for arriving at them.--Finally, let
it not be forgotten that the English, with their profound mediocrity,
brought about once before a general depression of European intelligence.

What is called "modern ideas," or "the ideas of the eighteenth century,"
or "French ideas"--that, consequently, against which the GERMAN mind
rose up with profound disgust--is of English origin, there is no doubt
about it. The French were only the apes and actors of these ideas, their
best soldiers, and likewise, alas! their first and profoundest VICTIMS;
for owing to the diabolical Anglomania of "modern ideas," the AME
FRANCAIS has in the end become so thin and emaciated, that at present
one recalls its sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its profound,
passionate strength, its inventive excellency, almost with disbelief.
One must, however, maintain this verdict of historical justice in
a determined manner, and defend it against present prejudices and
appearances: the European NOBLESSE--of sentiment, taste, and manners,
taking the word in every high sense--is the work and invention of
FRANCE; the European ignobleness, the plebeianism of modern ideas--is
ENGLAND'S work and invention.

254. Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual
and refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste; but
one must know how to find this "France of taste." He who belongs to it
keeps himself well concealed:--they may be a small number in whom it
lives and is embodied, besides perhaps being men who do not stand upon
the strongest legs, in part fatalists, hypochondriacs, invalids, in
part persons over-indulged, over-refined, such as have the AMBITION to
conceal themselves.

The