“En portant à leur plus haut degré ses sentiments les plus intimes, on devient le chef de file d’un grand nombre d’autres hommes. Pour acquérir une valeur typique, il faut être le plus individuel qu’il est possible.”
THIRD EDITION, WITH A NEW PREFACE.
London: Walter Scott, Ltd.,
24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| Preface | [vii] |
| Introduction | [1] |
| Diderot | [34] |
| Heine | [68] |
| Whitman | [89] |
| Ibsen | [133] |
| Tolstoi | [174] |
| Conclusion | [228] |
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
No alterations have been made in this edition. It is true that three of the figures here studied were living when the book was written; but their genius had matured, their work was for the most part done. Nothing they could produce would seriously modify one’s conception of them as aboriginal personal forces, the outcome of the past, the initiators of the future. Apart from this, it seems to me a mistake to manipulate or add to one’s own completed work. If I were to re-write it, I should doubtless write it differently; the Conclusion, for instance, which is earliest in date, seems to me now rather formal and metaphysical. But for the most part I have nothing seriously to alter or to omit.
I have sometimes been asked why, in a discussion of some of the new influences of the past century, I have left out representative men who have made so great a stir in the world. Goethe, it may possibly be true, stalks through every page, but where are Kant, Hegel, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer? I cannot remember ever proposing to include these names. The reason may be clearer if I mention other names I once wished to include, although—partly doubting my competence to discuss them, partly fearing that their introduction might seem to interfere with the unity of the book—I ultimately refrained.