art of hearing. In a small mountain resort (Recoaro) near Vicenza, where I
spent the spring of 1881, I and my friend and Maestro, Peter Gast--also one
who had been born again--discovered that the phoenix music that hovered
over us, wore lighter and brighter plumes than it had done theretofore."

During the month of August 1881 my brother resolved to reveal the teaching
of the Eternal Recurrence, in dithyrambic and psalmodic form, through the
mouth of Zarathustra. Among the notes of this period, we found a page on
which is written the first definite plan of "Thus Spake Zarathustra":--

"MIDDAY AND ETERNITY."

"GUIDE-POSTS TO A NEW WAY OF LIVING."

Beneath this is written:--

"Zarathustra born on lake Urmi; left his home in his thirtieth year,
went into the province of Aria, and, during ten years of solitude in
the mountains, composed the Zend-Avesta."

"The sun of knowledge stands once more at midday; and the serpent of
eternity lies coiled in its light--: It is YOUR time, ye midday brethren."

In that summer of 1881, my brother, after many years of steadily declining
health, began at last to rally, and it is to this first gush of the
recovery of his once splendid bodily condition that we owe not only "The
Gay Science", which in its mood may be regarded as a prelude to
"Zarathustra", but also "Zarathustra" itself. Just as he was beginning to
recuperate his health, however, an unkind destiny brought him a number of
most painful personal experiences. His friends caused him many