[45] In Nietzsche’s opinion, this was the case with Wagner, who, when he gave himself out to his compatriots as the Messiah of German art, saw that there was ‘a good vacant place to take’, while the whole of his artistic formation as well as his profound philosophy, was essentially universalist. (See _Ecce Homo_, p. 58. ‘What I have never forgiven Wagner is his condescending to Germany.’) One wonders whether the same might not be said of a certain apostle of ‘Lorrain genius’ or of ‘Provençal genius’. [46] The nationalization of the mind sometimes has results whose savour is not sufficiently enjoyed. In 1904, during the centenary celebrations of Petrarch, the nations of Goethe and Shakespeare were not invited, because they are not Latins; but the Roumanians were invited. We do not know whether Uruguay was invited. [47] Anatole France, _La Vie Littéraire_, tome ii, p. 274. The nationalist desires in French writers which I have been pointing out have had other than political results; no one will ever be able to say how many among them in the past fifty years have falsified their talents, mistaken their true gifts in their endeavours to ‘feel in the French manner’. A good example is the _Voyage de Sparte_, where so many pages show what a beautiful piece of work it might have been if the author had not _forced_ himself to feel his Lorrain soul under a Greek sky. Here we come upon one of the most curious characteristics in the writers of this age; the rejection of freedom of mind _for themselves_, the thirst for ‘a discipline’ (the whole fortune of MM. Maurras and Maritain comes from this), a thirst which in most of them is the result of a fundamental intellectual nihilism. (On this nihilism in Barrès, see Curtius, ‘Barrès and the intellectual foundations of French nationalism,’ extracts in _Union pour la Vérité_, May, 1925; in Maurras, see Guy-Grand, op. cit., p. 19; and L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d’Action Française_, p. 330: ‘I have never seen a more unhappy soul than his.’) But the psychology of contemporary writers in itself and apart from its political action is not my subject here. [48] I think it novel that a poet should give rise to a demonstration so essentially practical as the address of the Naval League of Venice to d’Annunzio after the publication of _La Nave_. ‘On the day when your genius radiates with new splendour over the ancient ruler of “our sea”, over Venice, to-day disarmed against Pola, the Naval League of Venice thanks you with emotion, hoping that the third Italy may at last arm the prow and set sail towards the world.’ (_Translator’s Note._--I have rendered the French version as quoted; its meaning or lack of meaning is no doubt inherent in the genius of the original, which I have not before me.)