. . .sible border-line above which a man is transfigured and exalted, above glory itself, into a light of immortality.

Friedrich Nietzsche heard the Meistersinger. He was touched by its marvellous beauty and his critical fancies[Pg 63] vanished. "To be just towards such a man," he wrote to Rohde, "one must have a little enthusiasm.... I try in vain to listen to his music in a cold and reserved frame of mind; every nerve vibrates in me...." This miraculous art had taken hold of him; he wished that his friends should share his new passion; he confided his Wagnerian impressions to them: "Last night at the concert," he wrote, "the overture to the Meistersinger caused me so lasting a thrill that it was long since I had felt anything like it." Wagner's sister, Madame Brockhaus, was living in Leipsic. She was a woman out of the ordinary; and her friends affirmed that they recognised in her a little of the genius of her brother. Nietzsche wanted to approach her. This modest . . . Read More