"Adam the goodliest man of men since born,
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve."
Addison.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
From the first to the last page of Nietzsche's writings the careful reader seems to hear a madman, with flashing eyes, wild gestures, and foaming mouth, spouting forth deafening bombast; and through it all, now breaking out into frenzied laughter, now sputtering expressions of filthy abuse and invective, now skipping about in a giddy agile dance, and now bursting upon the auditors with threatening mien and clenched fists. So far as any meaning at all can be extracted from the endless stream of phrases, it shows, as its fundamental elements, a series of constantly reiterated delirious ideas, having their source in illusions of sense and diseased organic processes. Here and there emerges a distinct idea, which, as is always the case with the insane, assumes the form of an imperious assertion, a sort of despotic command.
Max Nordau.
Note
In addition to these brief extracts the student should be encouraged or required to read a number of complete reviews both in our popular periodicals and in books of literary criticism, with the view of determining the critic's temper, culture, judgment, thoroughness, points of view, etc. The older style of criticism is illustrated in Addison's articles on Milton in the "Spectator" and Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." For the elaborate review style the student might read some of the critical essays of Macaulay, Carlyle, and Lowell. Our principal reviews, magazines, and other periodicals, as well as recent works on English literature, will supply abundant material to show the less elaborate and generally more genial criticism of the present day.