Another small country and an author, little known outside France and Germany and his own land, was the choice for the award of 1919--Carl Spitteler of Switzerland. There was no prize given in 1918, in literature. In spite of the fact that Nietzsche had written of Spitteler as “perhaps the most subtle æsthetic writer of Germany,”[120] his name was not familiar to international readers. Born in Liestal, a canton of Basel in 1845, he was nearly seventy-five years old. His work had been idealistic in trend, thus fulfilling one condition of the prize; his epic for which he was honored had been completed fourteen years before--_Olympian Spring_. He had suffered from disappointments and lack of appreciation by critics until his later years. He had never lost his zeal for literature and desire to promulgate ideals of truth and freedom. He was fortunate in opportunities for travel and study as a youth. His father was in the post-office service at Basel and later was Secretary of the Treasury at Berne. While at Basel University, Carl Spitteler came under two influences of lasting results on his life and writing--Wilhelm Wackernagel, the German philologist, and Jacob Burckhardt, the historian of the Italian Renaissance. He loved music, especially Beethoven, and showed taste for art. Later he went to the Universities of Zürich and Heidelberg, to study history and jurisprudence. He took courses in theology--thinking he might be a minister--but decided wisely that his bent was towards philosophy and literature. His ambition was to become an epic poet; he essayed to write _John of Abyssinia_, _Atlantis_, _Theseus and Heracles_ but he pushed aside these pioneer efforts as puerile. For eight years he was tutor in Russia, in the family of a Russian general. While there, he was writing slowly the poem that he had planned in student days at Heidelberg, _Prometheus and Epimetheus_. It was issued first under the pseudonym of “Felix Tandem” and ten years later with his own signature.[121] His Prometheus is “an exalted soul,” suffering rather than proving untrue to his spiritual ideals. By contrast is his brother, Epimetheus, receiving Pandora’s gifts and material honors but losing his soul until he recalls Prometheus from exile, to drive away “the powers of evil.” There is depth of philosophy mingled with modern ideas in this poem of grace and beauty. He was charged with imitating Nietzsche’s _Also sprach Zarathustra_ so he wrote a pamphlet, _My Relations with Nietzsche_, emphasizing his ignorance of the latter’s work when he wrote his poem on Prometheus.