Nietzsche had been very unwell throughout this period. Dyspepsia and headaches, brought on partly by overwork, racked him incessantly, and, in addition, he was getting ever nearer and nearer to a final and irrevocable breach with the greatest friend of his life--Richard Wagner. After obtaining leave from the authorities he went to Sorrento, where, in the autumn of 1876, he began work on his next important book, _Human, All-too-human_, the book which was to part him for ever from Wagner. In February 1878 the first volume was ready for the printer, and was published almost simultaneously with Wagner's Parsifal, which work, as is well known, was the death-blow to Nietzsche's faith in his former idol. In _Human, All-too-human_, Nietzsche as a philosopher is not yet standing on his own legs, as it were. He is only just beginning to feel his way, and is still deeply immersed in the thought of other men--more particularly that of the English positivists. As a work of transition, however, _Human, All-too-Human_ is exceedingly interesting, as are also its sequels _Miscellaneous Opinions and Apophthegms_ (1879) and _The Wanderer and his Shadow_ (1880). But in none of these, as the author himself admits, is there to be found that certainty of aim and treatment which characterised his later writings. In 1879, owing to ill-health, Nietzsche was compelled to resign his professorship at the University of Bâle, and the spring of that year saw him an independent man with an annual pension of 3000 francs, generously granted to him by the Board of Management on the acceptance of his resignation. With this pension and a small private income derived from a capital of about £1400, he was not destitute, though by no means affluent, and when we remember that he was obliged to defray the expenses of publication in the case of almost every one of his books, we may form some idea of his actual resources. From this time forward Nietzsche's life was spent in travelling and writing. Venice, Marienbad, Zürich, St. Moritz in the Ober-Engadine, Sils Maria, Tautenberg in Thuringia, Genoa, etc., etc. were among the places at which he stayed, according to the season; and during the year 1880 his health materially improved. In January 1881 he had completed the manuscript of the _Dawn of Day_, and is said to have been well satisfied with his condition. In the _Dawn of Day_ Nietzsche for the first time begins to reveal his real personality. This book is literally the dawn of his great life work, and in it we find him grappling with all the problems which he was subsequently to tackle with such a masterly and courageous hand. It appeared in July 1881 and met with but a poor reception. Indeed, after the publication of the last of the _Thoughts out of Season_ Nietzsche appears to have created very little stir among his countrymen--a fact which, though it greatly depressed him, only made him redouble his energies.