Nietzsche cannot be said to have overcome it; he fled from it, took refuge in solitude, and lived outside the world of men, alone in the mountains among cold, fresh springs. And even if he felt no loathing for individuals, his disgust with men found a collective outlet, since he entertained, or rather worked up, a positive horror of his countrymen, so powerful that at last it breaks out in everything he writes. It reminds us dimly of Byron's dislike of Englishmen, Stendhal's of Frenchmen, and Heine's of Germans. But it is of a more violent character than Stendhal's or Heine's, and it has a pathos and contempt of its own. He shows none of it at the outset. In his first book, _The Birth of Tragedy_, he is no less partial to Germany than Heine was in his first, romantically Teutonic period. But Nietzsche's development carried him with a rush away from Germanism, and in this last book of his the word "German" has become something like his worst term of abuse. He believes only in French culture; all other culture is a misunderstanding. It makes him angry to see those Frenchmen he values most, infected by German spirit. Thus Taine is, in his opinion, corrupted by Hegel's influence. This impression is right in so far as Hegel deprived Taine of some of the essentially French element which he originally possessed, and of which certain of his admirers before now have painfully felt the loss. But he overlooks the effect of the study of Hegel in promoting at the same time what one might call the extension of Taine's intellectual horizon. And Nietzsche is satisfied with no narrower generalisation of the case than this: Wherever Germany extends, she ruins culture. As though to make sure of wounding German national pride, he declares that Heinrich Heine (not Goethe) gave him the highest idea of lyric poetry, and that as concerns Byron's _Manfred_, he has no words, only a look, for those who in the presence of this work dare to utter the name of _Faust_. The Germans, he maintains in connection with _Manfred_, are incapable of any conception of greatness. So uncritical has he become that he puts _Manfred_ above _Faust_.