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INTRODUCTION

The first sketches for "The Will to Power" were made in 1884, soon after the publication of the first three parts of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and thereafter, for four years, Nietzsche piled up notes. They were written at all the places he visited on his endless travels in search of health--at Nice, at Venice, at Sils-Maria in the Engadine , at Cannobio, at Z?rich, at Genoa, at Chur, at Leipzig. Several times his work was interrupted by other books, first by "Beyond Good and Evil," then by "The Genealogy of Morals" , then by his Wagner pamphlets. Almost as often he changed his plan. Once he decided to expand "The Will to Power" to ten volumes, with "An Attempt at a New Interpretation of the World" as a general sub-title. Again he adopted the sub-title of "An Interpretation of All That Happens." Finally, he hit upon "An Attempt at a Transvaluation of All Values," and went back to four volumes, though with a number of changes in their arrangement. In September, 1888, he began actual work upon the first volume, and before the end of the month it was completed. The Summer had been one of almost hysterical creative activity. Since the middle of June he had written two other small books, "The Case of Wagner" and "The Twilight of the Idols," and before the end of the year he was destined to write "Ecce Homo." Some time during December his health began to fail rapidly, and soon after the New Year he was helpless. Thereafter he wrote no more.

In truth, the present philippic is as necessary to the completeness of the whole of Nietzsche's system as the keystone is to the arch. All the curves of his speculation lead up to it. What he flung himself against, from beginning to end of his days of writing, was always, in the last analysis, Christianity in some form or other--Christianity as a system of practical ethics, Christianity as a political code, Christianity as metaphysics, Christianity as a gauge of the truth. It would be difficult to think of any intellectual enterprise on his long list that did not, more or less directly and clearly, relate itself to this master enterprise of them all. It was as if his apostasy from the faith of his fathers, filling him with the fiery zeal of the convert, and particularly of the convert to heresy, had blinded him to every other element in the gigantic self-delusion of civilized man. The will to power was his answer to Christianity's affectation of humility and self-sacrifice; eternal recurrence was his mocking criticism of Christian optimism and millennialism; the superman was his candidate for the place of the Christian ideal of the "good" man, prudently abased before the throne of God. The things he chiefly argued for were anti-Christian things--the abandonment of the purely moral view of life, the rehabilitation of instinct, the dethronement of weakness and timidity as ideals, the renunciation of the whole hocus-pocus of dogmatic religion, the extermination of false aristocracies , the revival of the healthy, lordly "innocence" that was Greek. If he was anything in a word, Nietzsche was a Greek born two thousand years too late. His dreams were thoroughly Hellenic; his whole manner of thinking was Hellenic; his peculiar errors were Hellenic no less. But his Hellenism, I need not add, was anything but the pale neo-Platonism that has run like a thread through the thinking of the Western world since the days of the Christian Fathers. From Plato, to be sure, he got what all of us must get, but his real forefather was Heraclitus. It is in Heraclitus that one finds the germ of his primary view of the universe--a view, to wit, that sees it, not as moral phenomenon, but as mere aesthetic representation. The God that Nietzsche imagined, in the end, was not far from the God that such an artist as Joseph Conrad imagines--a supreme craftsman, ever experimenting, ever coming closer to an ideal balancing of lines and forces, and yet always failing to work out the final harmony.

But under all this alarmed and preposterous tosh there was at least a sound instinct, and that was the instinct which recognized Nietzsche as the most eloquent, pertinacious and effective of all the critics of the philosophy to which the Allies against Germany stood committed, and on the strength of which, at all events in theory, the United States had engaged itself in the war. He was not, in point of fact, involved with the visible enemy, save in remote and transient ways; the German, officially, remained the most ardent of Christians during the war and became a democrat at its close. But he was plainly a foe of democracy in all its forms, political, religious and epistemological, and what is worse, his opposition was set forth in terms that were not only extraordinarily penetrating and devastating, but also uncommonly offensive. It was thus quite natural that he should ersation--for that no one was allowed to go into the room, my lord himself giving him the necessary medicines, and having dismissed the nurse."

After her maid had taken off Emmeline's gown, unplaited her hair, and, at her desire, lit the fire in her dressing-room, as she fancied it would be a sort of companion to her, which, in her present state of mind, she felt to be necessary, she sent Jenkins to bed, and, drawing her chair close upon the hearth, Emmeline remained lost in reflections neither cheering nor soothing. The near neighbourhood of a death-bed gives an awful feeling even to one in the full pride of youth and health. To be aware that so close to us a fellow-creature is probably just then passing, through the agonies of death, to that eternity to which we all look with awe, is an overpowering sensation; and Emmeline shuddered as these thoughts crossed her mind. She cast her eyes fearfully round the room, and endeavoured to brighten the flame in the grate. Still death and its horrors hung over her imagination, which wandered now to future scenes of pain and punishment; and the thought that Fitzhenry--her loved Fitzhenry, who had wound himself round every fibre of her heart--might perhaps be an outcast from that heaven to which she had been taught to look, as the end and aim of her existence, was agony. For she could not conceal from herself that he was living in bold defiance, or rather in total disregard and indifference to the will and laws of his God.

Emmeline's blood curdled, and a cold shiver crept all over her frame. Instinctively she sunk on her knees, and prayed for him who had never been taught to pray for himself. Her head sank on her clasped hands, which rested on a chair beside her; her long hair falling over her face and shoulders. The dead silence that surrounded her, appalled her awe-stricken mind; she eagerly listened for some sound of human existence and neighbourhood; but nothing was to be heard but the regular vibration of the great clock in the hall. Emmeline remained kneeling, till her nervous agitation grew so painfully strong, that she hardly dared to move, and had not power to shake off the superstitious horror which had taken possession of her. Every limb trembled; the cold sweat stood on her forehead; and it was an inexpressible relief to her disordered mind, when, at length, she heard a slow step in the gallery, and a gentle knock at her door. She concluded it was her maid, bringing her some tidings of Reynolds, and she quickly and joyfully bade her enter. The door softly opened, and Fitzhenry appeared.

An unearthly vision could scarcely have startled Emmeline more. She uttered an exclamation, almost of terror, as she hastily rose from her knees; but almost directly sank into the chair beside her, her trembling limbs refusing to support her.

"I think you gave me leave to come in," said Fitzhenry, still standing at the door. Emmeline bowed assent, when, closing it after him, he came up to her, and put his candle on the mantle-piece.

"I thought you would be anxious to hear about poor Reynolds; and as he has now sunk into something like sleep, I came away for a minute to tell you he is more easy and composed; but I fear this stupor is only the forerunner of death, and that all will soon be over. I shall lose a most faithful servant--indeed, an attached friend--."

He paused; but Emmeline, still too nervous to speak, said nothing.

"I also came," said he, in an agitated, hurried manner, "to thank you for your kindness in coming to him: it was most kind--good--excellent;--like yourself. I feel it deeply, I assure you, as well as Reynolds."

Fitzhenry made no comment. Both were now standing seemingly occupied with watching the dying embers of the fire--at last he turned towards her, she felt his eyes were on her.

He was continuing, but with the quick touchiness of love, Emmeline, catching at those words, and fancying they alluded to what had lately passed, and were meant as a hint to her to avoid any possible recurrence of the same scene, immediately, with a voice scarcely audible from agitation, said:

"Just whatever you prefer," said Fitzhenry, coldly; and, after a moment's pause, "you know my wish is, that you should always do whatever you like and judge to be best." And he put up his hand to take his candle, as if in preparation to leave the room.

Poor Emmeline had, in a moment of perhaps excusable irritation, artfully made the proposal of leaving Arlingford, in the hope of its being opposed; and this cold acquiescence quite overcame her. She could not speak, for her lips quivered when she attempted it; and, depressed and nervous with all that had passed, big tears again rolled down her cheeks, and she kept her head averted to conceal them from Fitzhenry.

In raising his hand to take his candle, he somehow had caught on the button of his coat-sleeve a lock of her long hair, which was hanging loose over her shoulders; and, during the pause that followed his answer, he was endeavouring to disentangle himself; but in vain. Surprised at his still remaining near her, and in silence, she at last looked up, and seeing what had happened, her trembling hands darted on the entangled hair, and with the vehemence of vexation, she broke and untwisted it till she again set him free. He looked at her for a minute in seeming astonishment, and then, coldly wishing her good-night, left the room.

He had scarcely been gone a minute, when recalling the kindness of his manner on first entering, and blaming herself for the irritation she had given way to, she determined to recall him; and, passing from one extreme to another, and buoyed up with instant hope--though she scarcely knew of what--she hastily collected her hair with a comb, folded her wrapper closer around her, and opening her door, hurried into the gallery. All there was dark and silent; she turned towards Fitzhenry's room--his door was open--but he was gone! Stopping a minute to listen and take breath, she heard him crossing the hall below on his way to Reynolds's apartment. She determined to recall him, and hurried along the gallery to the head of the stairs for that purpose. When she got there, she saw the last faint ray of the light he was carrying glimmering across the hall. Twice she endeavoured to pronounce his name--but it was a name that never could be pronounced by her calmly. She was frightened at the sound of her own voice, faint as its accents were, and her courage totally failed her.

"Alas!" thought she, as she sadly leant against the bannisters for support, "if he came, what could I say to him? what have I to ask of him, but pity for feelings which he can neither understand nor return? and may I at least never so far forget myself. I am humbled enough already." And now, even alarmed at what those feelings had so nearly betrayed her into, she returned to her own room as hastily as she had a minute before quitted it; so capricious, so inconsistent does passion render its victims.

Towards dawn of day, Emmeline, whose heavy eyes sleep had never visited, heard a bustle below; several doors were hastily opened and shut. In a little time, Fitzhenry passed hastily along the gallery to his own room, and closed the door immediately after him. Then there was again a dead silence.

"It is all over," thought Emmeline; "Reynolds is at peace: the only being in this house who loved me is gone!" A cold shiver crept over her; she buried her tear-bedewed face in her pillow, and thus lay for long immoveable, no conscious thought passing through her agitated mind.

When her maid came to her in the morning, she informed her Reynolds had died about five o'clock; that Lord Fitzhenry had never left him; that he had supported him in his arms to the last, and, when all was over, appearing much affected, he had gone immediately to his own room, giving orders that no one was to go to him till he rung.

Jenkins, unbidden, brought Emmeline her breakfast in her own apartment, although at Arlingford that was a meal at which she and Fitzhenry had always hitherto met. How painfully did she then feel the separation between them! Fitzhenry was in sorrow, and she, his wife, dared not go near him; even the servants seemed to dictate to her her conduct, and to be aware of her situation.

As to her departure, she knew not what to determine. She had said she would go. Her husband had not opposed her declared intention, and she did not like again to be accused of caprice. Not feeling, however, that she could leave Arlingford without at least again seeing him, she put off her journey till the following day.

To pass the slow unoccupied hours, Emmeline, knowing there was no chance of seeing Fitzhenry for some time, wandered out. The country was now in its first freshness of beauty--all smiled around her. Those rides and paths which, the summer before, she had first seen, with Fitzhenry at her side, were again clothed in the lovely green of spring. Often at those spots, connected in her mind with some circumstance, word, or even look of Fitzhenry, which a few months back had, although in delusion, made her heart sometimes beat with the flattering hope that she was not quite indifferent to him, poor Emmeline would remain fixed, quite unconscious of the time she thus passed in vague reverie. For, compared with what she had endured in London, there was a sort of pleasure in her present state of mind, raised and soothed as it had been, by the late pious duties in which she had been engaged, and softened by the charm of renovated nature. How often does some accidental sound or perfume, wafted to us on a spring breeze, startle the mind by confused recollections of hours gone by, and by undefinable sensations of mixed pain and pleasure!

To one formed for tenderness, for all the social charities of life, there could not be a more cheerless fate than hers; for, repulsed from where her heart should have found its best home, she was even denied the consolations of confidential friendship. Occupied with these thoughts, Emmeline was little inclined to join in uninteresting, forced conversation. Fitzhenry, too, seemed much depressed, and they ate their repast in nearly total silence.

When it was ended, Fitzhenry, under the plea of having several orders to give, and many things to arrange in consequence of the death of Reynolds, soon returned to his own room, and Emmeline passed the remainder of the evening alone. On the approach of midnight, as he never appeared, she concluded that Fitzhenry did not intend to return; she therefore rang for her candle, and left the drawing-room; but before she reached her own apartment, she was met in the gallery by her husband--they both stopped.

"I shall leave this place to-morrow," said Emmeline, in a low voice. "Have you any letters or orders to send by me?" She still fondly hoped he would make some objection to her departure; but he merely replied, that he concluded she was going to Grosvenor-Street; that he would follow in a few days; and that if she did not set out early, he would send some letters by her.

"I can go at any hour," said Emmeline, "I am in no hurry; it does not signify at what time I go; all hours are the same to me." And so they parted.

It was in the same cold, distant manner that they separated next morning, when Emmeline left Arlingford for town. For though she loitered on, always hoping Fitzhenry would let fall some word at which she might catch as an encouragement to stay, he never in any manner opposed her departure; and at last, with a heavy heart, she entered her carriage, and, after a melancholy, solitary journey, drove over London's noisy pavement, now glazed by a burning May sun, into Grosvenor-Street.

Those who have lived in London when melancholy circumstances have excluded them from participating in its amusements, will enter into Emmeline's feelings when, during the first, and on many an ensuing dismal evening, which she spent alone, she heard the carriages hurry past her door in the constant bustle of pleasure. Often, as she sat in the dusk of the now long-protracted spring evenings, Emmeline was only roused from some deep reverie to a consciousness of the lateness of the hour, by the glare of the lamps and flambeaux of some of these gay equipages passing her darkened windows, and hastening to some general resort of diversion.

And this was the world into which poor Emmeline had to carry a breaking heart!

After Fitzhenry had joined her in town, although nothing further had ever passed,--no dispute, no difference had taken place,--yet, they appeared mutually to consider themselves as more than ever, in short, totally estranged.

Both looked miserable: an additional shade of melancholy seemed to have gathered on Lord Fitzhenry's countenance; and yet Emmeline was now certain that her rival was again in town, and that he passed with Lady Florence those hours which she now spent alone in Grosvenor-Street. For Emmeline felt it impossible to return to her former life; and, as there was no reason why she should, no one for whom she was called upon to make the exertion, she gave up what had already injured her health, both of mind and body.

Emmeline's temper even was not what it used to be; often, if Fitzhenry accidentally spoke to her, she answered him with asperity, and then the minute he had disappeared, she wept bitterly for her fault--for her offence towards love; longing for his return, that, on her knees, she might implore his forgiveness. Yet, when they again met, it was the same repulsive coldness on both sides.

But if there can ever be an excuse for one gifted by nature with the blessing of a mild, gentle disposition, for giving way to irritation, Emmeline might plead it. Her heart was every way wounded; even Pelham she now dreaded; Mrs. Osterley's hints eternally haunted her: if she caught his eye fixed upon her in anxious interest, her sick fancy took alarm, and the deep crimson in her cheeks betrayed apprehensions, which she wished to conceal even from herself.

Fitzhenry cared not for her; but the vow of constancy which her lips had pronounced at the altar, and which was since engraven by strong affection on her heart, was too sacred in her estimation to allow even the uninterested world to suspect that she trifled with it.

Her intercourse with Pelham being thus embittered, and her parents being the last to whom she could reveal her sorrows, she dragged on, in wretched solitude of heart, a listless, useless, aimless existence. The young, the gay, and the busy meantime bustled around her, careless of her unhappiness; or, if they sometimes observed its melancholy symptoms on her pale cheek, or in her heavy, absent eye, they only wondered "what could make Lady Fitzhenry so discontented, when she possessed every thing in the world to render her happy."

It is thus we too often pass harsh and hasty judgment on those whose grave or suffering countenances chance to cross us in the paths of pleasure, checking, for a minute, by their sad and therefore unwelcome presence, our feeling of enjoyment, in reminding us, most disagreeably, of its transient nature.

Poured in soft dalliance at a lady's feet, In fondest rapture he appeared to lie.... Their words she heard not--words had ne'er exprest What well her sickening fancy could supply-- All that their silent eloquence confest As breathed the sigh of fire from each impassioned breast. While thus she gazed, her quivering lips turn pale, Contending passions rage within her breast, Nor ever had she known such bitter bale, Or felt by such fierce agony opprest.

PSYCHE.

Among the few whom these many pleasures had that evening spared to Lady Mowbray, Emmeline found none with whom she was much acquainted; so that after having remained what she thought a sufficient time, hearing a loud knock, announcing a fresh reinforcement of company, and thinking she had performed her duty of civility, she meditated her departure, when the door opened, and Lady Florence Mostyn was announced.

At that name, Emmeline started so violently, that her neighbour turned round to see what had alarmed her; but could neither perceive any cause for her agitation, nor receive any answer to her enquires, whether she was well, for Emmeline's eyes, thoughts, and every sense, were fixed on her rival.

Lady Florence, after speaking to one or two other people, went up to Lady Mowbray, and seated herself by her, luckily at some distance from where Emmeline was placed. Lady Florence was past the first bloom and beauty of youth; but this was more apparent in the somewhat thickened contour of her figure, than in her face. Her deep blue eyes were still brilliant; her lovely chiselled mouth still opened to show teeth like pearls, and the roses and lillies still contended in her cheeks. She was simply dressed; but there was not a curl, however careless it appeared, but fell just where it should, and the large shawl in which she was wrapped, took some new graceful fold each time she moved, and by its brilliant colours gave additional effect to the delicate whiteness of a round arm, covered with bracelets. Her voice, and look, were sweetness itself; but in her eyes, an expression lurked, that recalled to the mind, Walter Scott's "Wiley Dame Heron."

Poor Emmeline gazed on all these charms, till, growing frightened at her own increasing agitation, she hastily got up, and moved towards the door.

"My dear Lady Fitzhenry," exclaimed Lady Mowbray, who unfortunately had observed her intended departure, "I hope you are not already going?"

At that name, the eyes of Lady Florence eagerly followed those of the speaker, and rested on Emmeline. And, for an instant, as if impelled by some power they could not resist, the rivals glanced at each other, and their eyes met. But Emmeline's soon fell beneath the scrutiny, and she turned away her death-like face. The whole expression of Lady Florence's countenance had changed. Emmeline's appearance, every way so different from what she had expected, in an instant roused, within her, feelings she could scarcely command. Her uncontrolled passions were plainly painted in her face; the deep crimson in her cheeks overcame the well applied rouge; her eyes flashed fire; and the lovely smile on her lips, was replaced by a fearful expression of "envy, hatred, and malice."

Emmeline, scarcely able to support herself, and endeavouring to utter some excuse, still moved towards the door.

Emmeline stammered out, that she was obliged to go home.

"Home! I fear you are not well," retorted Lady Mowbray, now, for the first time, observing her blanched cheek, and bloodless lips. "Do at least wait till you hear that your carriage is ready:" and, cruelly well bred, she rang the bell, enquiring repeatedly whether Emmeline would not be prevailed upon to take something.

Unable to speak, she shook her head in answer, and the instant the welcome sound of her own name reached her ears, she darted out of the room, though still followed by the civilities and offers of the lady of the house.

When in her carriage, and when too late, Emmeline remembered Pelham's often repeated advice, to endeavour to control, or, at least conceal, her feelings better. She was aware she had humbled herself before her, who, of all people, she would least wish should read those feelings; and she felt also that she had left herself and her husband subjects for animadversion, certainly not of the most charitable nature. But poor Emmeline, in common with all those who allow their affections to control their judgment, never, till too late, discovered what her conduct should have been--an artlessness of disposition, ill-calculated to contend with a guileful world.

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