New-York tribune., 1911-02-25
Literary yNesOs ana Criticism

perhaps. had loved him. Nietzsche wished
to believe this and came TO believe IT.
| Yes, there had been love between them.
and Cosima would have saved him. as she
saved Wagner IT, by lucky chance. she had
only known HIM few years earlier But
mere again Wagner had robbed him. lie
had taken all: fame love. friendship We
can divine this strange romance In the last
works OF Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche had been thrown by his
horse i'm the course of his military SER
vice, and recovered but slowly from his
injury. He resumed his studies at Leip-
sic and, before he had taken his degree.
received an offer OF a pathological pro-
fessorship at the University ot Basle.
The Leipsic faculty gave him his diploma
without an examination. This was in
1869 The honor of the appointment also
brought him near his new friends. the
Wagners, then at Triebschen, near the
Swiss town. The friendship began to
wane with the composers removal to
Berlin, three years later. In 1870
Nietzsche who had become a natural
lied Swiss in order to hold his profess
sorship served as volunteer nurse in
sight Of his old battery. in all the splen
dor of victory. that led to his progress
from Schopenhauer' will to live to
his own will 10 power" Another illness
followed his service OF mercy in the
field; thereafter his III health grew
worse. until II forced him to resign his
profcssorate in 1879.
Now follows the period Of his liberty
to work. Of his sufferings, his poverty
he was in receipt of a small pension-his
wanderings in search of health and his
dsappointments at the non-success Of
his works. the period. also, of the de-
votion of his only sister. The love of
man for woman appears TO have played
an entirely subordinate place in his life.
NJ Halevy records dim traces of a few
tender passages In Italy. among them
that of Miss Salomt, "a sort of Marie
Bashkirtseff," who has written a book
on the philosopher. With all his disap-
pointments, Nietzsche never lost that
abounding faith in himself which is one
of his foremost traits. He ranked him.
self with Luther and Goethe as one of
the creators Of the German language. 1t
is likely that toward the end Of his intel
lectual activity he took to drugs: NJ.
Haltvy believes SO How long his in
sanity brooded in him before the out
break il would be hard to say, but he had
a presentment of il when he was writing
"Zarathustra' On January Q. 1889, the
blow struck him. He lived for ten years
thereafter in mostly peaceful form Of
insanity. with occasional brief and no
less peaceful lucid moments.
Summing up his Introductory study,
Mr.. Kettle says:
Nietzsche never rose above a sort of
Philosophical cinematograph He had the
glitter, but never the hard defniteness OF
the diamond which he chose as his symbol.
But ii would be superficial to suppose that
thought so passionate could be altogether
unreal. Zarathustra is a counter poison TO
sentimentalism, that worst ailment of our
day. He brings sort of ethical strychnine
which taken In large doses is fatal but in
small doses is an Incompatible tonic.
Anthropology has undertaken to solve
In a different way the problem which
Nietzsche propounded so strikingly, and
which others before him lad considered
seriously Huxley among them-the prob
lem of the obstacle, namely, pre-
sented TO evolution. to the survival Of
the fittest by the humanitarian morality
of modern civilization, which tends to
preserve and increase the numbers Of
those untitled for the struggle of ex-