THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
BY
DANIEL HALÉVY
TRANSLATED BY J. M. MONE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
T. M. KETTLE, M.P.
T. FISCHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
1911
INTRODUCTION 7
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD 9
CHAPTER II
YEARS OF YOUTH 40
CHAPTER III
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND RICHARD WAGNER
—TRIEBSCHEN 71
CHAPTER IV
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND RICHARD WAGNER
—BAYREUTH 127
CHAPTER V
CRISIS AND CONVALESCENCE 195
CHAPTER VI
THE LABOUR OF ZARATHUSTRA 229
CHAPTER VII
THE FINAL SOLITUDE 298
INDEX 363
INTRODUCTION
The duel between Nietzsche and civilisation is long since over;and that high poet and calamitous philosopher is now to be judgedas he appears in the serene atmosphere of history, which—need itbe said?—he infinitely despised. The crowd, the common herd, themultitude—which he also despised—has recorded its verdict with itsusual generosity to the dead, and that verdict happens to be an amplerevenge. It has dismissed Nietzsche's ideas in order to praise hisimages. It has conceded him in literature a brilliant success, andhas treated his philosophy as fundamental nonsense of the sort thatcalls for no response except a shrug of the shoulders. The immoralistwho sought to shatter all the Tables of all the Laws, and to achievea Transvaluation of all Values, ends by filling a page in Die Ernteand other Anthologies for the Young. And in certifying his style tobe that of a rare and real master the "crowd" has followed a trueinstinct. More than Schopenhauer, more even than Goethe, Nietzsche isaccounted by the critics of his country to have taught German proseto speak, as Falstaff says, like a man o' this world. The ungainlysentences, many-jointed as a dragon's tail, became short, definite,arrowy. "We must 'Mediterraneanise' German music," he wrote to PeterGast, and in fact he did indisputably "Mediterraneanise" the style ofGerman literature. That edged and glittering speech of his owed much tohis acknowledged masters, La Rochefoucauld,[Pg 8] Voltaire, and Stendhal,the lapidaries of French. But it was something very intimately hisown; he was abundantly dowered with the insight of malice, and malicealways writes briefly and well. It has not the time to be obscure.Nietzsche had this perfection of utterance, but a far richer range andvolume. He was a poet by grace divine, and a true Romantic for all theacid he dropped on Romanticism; the life of his sou