The Schopenhauer Cure(29)

Julius watched in amazement as others, thirsty for Philip’s every word, chimed in. He felt competitive urges rising but quelled them by reminding himself that the group’s purposes were being served. Cool it, Julius, he said to himself, the group needs you; they’re not going to desert you for Philip. What’s going on here is great; they are assimilating the new member, and they are also each laying out agendas for future work.

He had planned to talk about his diagnosis in the group today. In a sense his hand was now forced because he had already told Philip he had a melanoma and, to avoid the impression of a special relationship with him, had to share it with the whole group. But he had been preempted. First there was Gill’s emergency, and then there was the group’s total fascination with Philip. He checked the clock. Ten minutes left. Not enough time to lay this on them. Julius resolved that he would absolutely begin the next meeting with the bad news. He remained silent and let the clock run out.





12


1799—Arthur Learns about Choice and Other Worldly Horrors




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The kings left their crowns and scepters behind here, and the heroes their weapons. Yet the great spirits among them all, whose splendor flowed out of themselves, who did not receive it from outward things, they take their greatness across with them.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, age sixteen at Westminster Abbey



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When the nine-year-old Arthur returned from Le Havre, his father placed him in a private school whose specific mandate was to educate future merchants. There he learned what good merchants of the time had to know: to calculate in different currencies, to write business letters in all the major European languages, to study transport routes, trade centers, yields of the soil, and other such fascinating topics. But Arthur was not fascinated; he had no interest in such knowledge, formed no close friendships at school, and dreaded more each day his father’s plan for his future—a seven-year apprenticeship with a local business magnate.

What did Arthur want? Not the life of a merchant—he loathed the very idea. He craved the life of a scholar. Though many of his classmates also disliked the thought of a long apprenticeship, Arthur’s protests ran far deeper. Despite his parents’ strong admonitions—a letter from his mother instructed him to “put aside all these authors for a while…you are now fifteen and have already read and studied the best German, French and, in part, also English authors”—he spent all his available free time studying literature and philosophy.

Arthur’s father, Heinrich, was tormented by his son’s interests. The headmaster of Arthur’s school had informed him that his son had a passion for philosophy, was exceptionally suited for the life of a scholar, and would do well to transfer to a gymnasium which would prepare him for the university. In his heart, Heinrich may have sensed the correctness of the schoolmaster’s advice; his son’s voracious consumption and comprehension of all works of philosophy, history, and literature in the extensive Schopenhauer library was readily apparent.

What was Heinrich to do? At stake was his successor, as well as the future of the entire firm and his filial obligation to all his ancestors to maintain the Schopenhauer lineage. Moreover, he shuddered at the prospect of a male Schopenhauer subsisting on the limited income of a scholar.

First, Heinrich considered setting up a lifelong annuity through his church for his son, but the cost was prohibitive; business was bad, and Heinrich also had obligations to guarantee the financial future of a wife and daughter.

Then gradually a solution, a somewhat diabolical solution, began to form in his mind. For some time he had resisted Johanna’s pleas for a lengthy tour of Europe. These were difficult times; the international political climate was so unstable that the safety of the Hanseatic cities was threatened and his constant attention to business was required. Yet because of weariness and his yearning to shed the weight of business responsibilities, his resistance to Johanna’s request was wavering. Slowly there swiveled into mind an inspired plan that would serve two purposes; his wife would be pleased, and the dilemma of Arthur’s future would be resolved.

His decision was to offer his fifteen-year-old son a choice. “You must choose,” he told him. “Either accompany your parents on a year’s grand tour of all of Europe or pursue a career as a scholar. Either you give me a pledge that on the day you return from the journey you will begin your business apprenticeship or forego this journey, remain in Hamburg, and immediately transfer to a classical educational curriculum which will prepare you for the academic life.”

Imagine a fifteen-year-old facing such a life-altering decision. Perhaps the ever-pedantic Heinrich was offering existential instruction. Perhaps he was teaching his son that alternatives exclude, that for every yes there must be a no. (Indeed, years later Arthur was to write, “He who would be everything cannot be anything.”)

Or was Heinrich exposing his son to a foretaste of renunciation, that is, if Arthur could not renounce the pleasure of the journey, how could he expect himself to renounce worldly pleasures and live the impecunious life of a scholar?

Perhaps we are being too charitable to Heinrich. Most likely his offer was disingenuous because he knew that Arthur would not, could not, refuse the trip. No fifteen-year-old could do that in 1803. At that time such a journey was a priceless once-in-a-lifetime event granted only to a privileged few. Before the days of photography, foreign places were known only through sketches, paintings, and published travel journals (a genre, incidentally, that Johanna Schopenhauer was later to exploit brilliantly).