The same influence coloured the preface to _Lady Julie_, and the novel _Tschandala_, published in 1889, and led Mr. Edmund Gosse into the error of describing Strindberg as "the most remarkable creative talent started by the philosophy of Nietzsche." Strindberg was certainly not "started" by Nietzsche who was entirely unknown to him until the autumn of 1888, when George Brandes brought the two writers together. A correspondence between Nietzsche and Strindberg began in 1889, and continued until Nietzsche's illness. Nietzsche read Strindberg's novels with interest, and Strindberg duly acknowledged the influence which Nietzsche exercised upon him, but protested against the mistaken view expressed by Mr. Gosse and others, in the following words: "Those who have followed my career as a writer at its different stages of development know sufficiently well how early I adopted the so-called Nietzschean standpoint with regard to conventional morals, and the emancipation of women to give me my due, and Nietzsche his with clear consciences." The statement that Strindberg was a Nietzschean _pur et simple_ is as absurd as the statement that he was a Darwinist or a Methodist. He passed through the fatalism of Hartmann, the pessimism of Schopenhauer, the naturalism of Zola, the realism of Turgenev and Dostoevsky. On one occasion he speaks of Balzac as his master, on another he calls himself a Voltairean. These influences are but lights on the way. He passes on, and speaks to us with a new tongue. When charged with inconsistency he might well have answered with Walt Whitman: "I am large--I contain multitudes." [1] _Fröken Julie_, the Swedish name of this play, has been translated into English as "Miss Juliet" and "Miss Julia." The meaning of the Swedish title and the idea of the play are more faithfully rendered by the title _Lady Julie_. In the choice of a title for his feminine type of aristocratic degeneracy, Strindberg was probably influenced by Anna Maria Lenngren's _Fröken Juliana_, a well-known satirical poem on a similar subject which belongs to classical Swedish literature. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the title "Fröken" was exclusively used-when addressing the unmarried daughters of the hereditary nobility of Sweden. An unmarried daughter of a Swedish count is a countess, though she is addressed as "Fröken." Upon marriage with a commoner she may use or drop her title. [2] _Studies in Seven Arts_, by Arthur Symons. [3] _"Les décors, les costumes et la mise-en-scène au XVII siècle."_ [4] Confused Sensations. [5] The Confession of a Fool. CHAPTER VII SELF-TORMENTOR AND VISIONARY