I could not bear the
thought that a genius, hopelessly misunderstood by the crowd, should be
bent on making his solitude more bitter and narrow by refusing, with a
sort of jealous waywardness, to be reconciled to his equals, or to offer
them the hand of friendship. But now I think that perhaps it was better
so. The first virtue of genius is sincerity. If Nietzsche had to go out
of his way _not_ to understand Wagner, it is natural, on the other hand,
that Wagner should be a closed book to Tolstoy; it would be almost
surprising if it were otherwise. Each one has his own part to play, and
has no need to change it. Wagner's wonderful dreams and magic intuition
of the inner life are not less valuable to us than Tolstoy's pitiless
truth, in which he exposes modern society and tears away the veil of
hypocrisy with which she covers herself. So I admire _Siegfried_, and
at the same time enjoy Tolstoy's satire; for I like the latter's sturdy
humour, which is one of the most striking features of his realism, and
which, as he himself noticed, makes him closely resemble Rousseau. Both
men show us an ultra-refined civilisation, and both are uncompromising
apostles of a return to nature.
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