Curb Your Enthusiasm

In 1807, Johanna Schopenhauer sent a spectacular letter to her nineteen-year-old son, who would shortly rejoin his mother and sister in Weimar after a stint working as a merchant’s apprentice in Hamburg. At the prospect of this little family reunion, Johanna groaned with misgivings. “You are not an evil human,” she began her letter, “you are not without intellect and education; you have everything that could make you a credit to human society. Moreover, I am acquainted with your heart and know that few are better, but you are nevertheless irritating and unbearable, and I consider it most difficult to live with you.”