sible to every one, and rumours are more easily believed than
verified, the error of supposing that these pamphlets were dictated by
personal animosity, and even by Nietzsche's envy of Wagner in his glory,
seems to be a pretty common one. Another very general error is to suppose
that the point at issue here is not one concerning music at all, but
concerning religion. It is taken for granted that the aspirations, the
particular quality, the influence, and the method of an art like music,
are matters quite distinct from the values and the conditions prevailing
in the culture with which it is in harmony, and that however many
Christian elements may be discovered in Wagnerian texts, Nietzsche had no
right to raise aesthetic objections because he happened to entertain the
extraordinary view that these Christian elements had also found their way
into Wagnerian music.

To both of these views there is but one reply:--they are absolutely false.

In the "Ecce Homo," Nietzsche's autobiography,--a book which from cover to
cover and line for line is sincerity itself--we learn what Wagner actually
meant to Nietzsche. On pages 41, 44, 84, 122, 129, &c, we cannot doubt
that Nietzsche is speaking from his heart,--and what does he say?--In
impassioned tones he admits his profound indebtedness to the great
musician, his love for him, his gratitude to him,--how Wagner was the only
German who had ever been anything to him--how his friendship with Wagner
constituted the happiest and most valuable experience of his life,--how his
breach with Wagner almost killed him. And, when we remember, too, that
Wagner on his part also declared that he was "alone" after he had lost
"that man" (Nietzsche), we begin to perceive that personal bitterness and
animosity are out of the question here. We feel we are on a higher plane,
and that we must not judge these two men as if they were a couple of
little business people who had had a suburban squabble.

Nietzsche declares ("Ecce Homo," p. 24) that he never attacked persons as
persons. If he used a name at all, it was merely as a means to an end,
just as one might use a magnifying glass in order to make a general, but
elusive and intricate fact more clear and more apparent, and if he used
the name of David Strauss, without bitterness or spite (for he did not
even know the man), when he wished to personify Culture-Philistinism, so,
in the same spirit, did he use the name of Wagner, when he wished to
personify