My impatient love overfloweth in streams,—down towards sunrise and sunset. Out of silent mountains and storms of affliction, rusheth my soul into the valleys.
Too long have I longed and looked into the distance. Too long hath solitude possessed me: thus have I unlearned to keep silence.
Utterance have I become altogether, and the brawling of a brook from high rocks: downward into the valleys will I hurl my speech.
And let the stream of my love sweep into unfrequented channels! How should a stream not finally find its way to the sea!
Forsooth, there is a lake in me, sequestered and self-sufficing; but the stream of my love beareth this along with it, down—to the sea!
New paths do I tread, a new speech cometh unto me; tired have I become— like all creators—of the old tongues. No longer will my spirit walk on worn-out soles.
Too slowly runneth all speaking for me:—into thy chariot, O storm, do I leap! And even thee will I whip with my spite!
Like a cry and an huzza will I traverse wide seas, till I find the Happy Isles where my friends sojourn;—
And mine enemies amongst them! How I now love every one unto whom I may but speak! Even mine enemies pertain to my bliss.
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that Zarathustra, though Nietzsche's opus magnum, should not be read first: many chapters are nearly meaningless without knowledge of Nietzsche's life and friendships, and its philosophical views are best clarified by his other works, which he himself regarded as preparation for it.
Ludovici reads 'The Child with the Mirror' as Nietzsche's grief at the misinterpretation of his writings, and says it hints that a creator of new values is most obstructed by language itself, whose words are stamped with the race's long-ruling values, hence the obscurity of original thinkers.