CHAPTER XI. HIS FAME AND DEATH Late in the year 1851 the 'Parerga and Paralipomena' saw the light. 'I am right glad,' Schopenhauer writes, 'to witness the birth of my last child, which completes my mission in this world. I really feel as if a load, that I have borne since my twenty-fourth year, and that has weighed heavily upon me, had been lifted from my shoulder. No one can imagine what that means.' ...... 'When we are a little further, I shall be glad to have your candid opinion on the trifles of this olla podrida: certainly there will be no want of variety. It is a pasty containing the most various things. In the second volume there are some comic bits, also dialogues. I am much pleased with the printer; he is attentive and faithful, which please tell him if you have an opportunity.' The first review gave him keen pleasure. 'It is laudatory throughout, almost enthusiastic, and very well put together. The times of barking and pot-house politics are past. Every one has now to turn to literature.' This gradual awakening of his fame was a very Indian summer in Schopenhauer's life. He grew more amiable, more accessible; friends and admirers crowded round him, and though a sneer was hidden in his remark to Gwinner, 'After one has spent a long life in insignificance and disregard, they come at the end with drums and trumpets, and think that is something,' it does not hide the evident satisfaction this tardy recognition afforded. 'My opponents think I am old and shall soon die, and then it will all be over with me; well, it is already past their power to silence me, and I may live to be ninety.' The last ten years of his existence were, contrary to custom, the happiest; his 'Parerga' had effected what his more important work had failed to compass. Nothing disturbed the even tenor of his life, and he saw no reason why, with his hale constitution and sensible careful regimen, he should not become a centenarian. The Vedic Upanishad fixes the natural duration of man's life at a hundred; justly so, Schopenhauer thought, as he had remarked that only those who have passed ninety attain Euthanasia, while others who reach the supposed natural age of seventy to eighty die of disease. Strange to say, it was from England the first signal came that drew attention to Schopenhauer. It was the 'Westminster Review' article, before mentioned, largely read in Germany, and made accessible to all by the German rendering of Dr. Lindner, another of Schopenhauer's new-found disciples. The article gave Schopenhauer the most unfeigned pleasure, and he never tired of speaking its praise. But best of all,' he writes, 'is the commencement, namely, the picture of my relation to the professors, and the execrableness of these fellows; above all, the three times repeated—Nothing.' The fidelity of the translated extracts amazed him: 'The man has rendered not only my style but my mannerisms, my gestures; it is like a looking-glass—most wonderful!' 'Especially the satirical bits out of the Four-fold Root are admirable.' 'And this in spite of the contempt felt in England for German metaphysics.