Let us imagine a coming generation with such intrepidity of vision, with such a heroic penchant for the tremendous; let us imagine the bold stride of these dragon-slayers, the proud audacity with which they turn their back on all the weakling's doctrines of optimism in order to 'live resolutely' in wholeness and fullness: would it not be necessary for the tragic man of such a culture, in view of his self-education for seriousness and terror, to desire a new art, the art of metaphysical comfort, to desire tragedy as his own proper Helen, and to exclaim with Faust:

Should not my longing overleap the distance
And draw the fairest form into existence?"

"Would it not be necessary?"--No, thrice no! O you young romantics: it would not be necessary! But it is highly probably that it will end that way, that you end that way--namely, "comforted," as it is written, in spite of all self-education for seriousness and terror, "comforted metaphysically"--in sum, as romantics end, as Christians.

Autore: Friedrich Nietzsche