Even so, it is probable that he was as much influenced by certain Frenchmen as he ever was by Germans--particularly by Montaigne, La Bruyère, La Rochefoucauld, Fontenelle, Vauvenargues and Chamfort, his constant companions on his wanderings. He borrowed from them, not only the somewhat obvious device of putting his argument into the form of apothegms and epigrams, but also their conception of the dialectic as one of the fine arts--in other words, their striving after style. "It is to a small number of French authors," he once said, "that I return again and again. I believe only in French culture, and regard all that is called culture elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, as mere misunderstanding.... The few persons of higher culture that I have met in Germany have had French training--above all, Frau Cosima Wagner, by long odds the best authority on questions of taste I ever heard of."[17] This preference carried him so far, indeed, that he usually wrote more like a Frenchman than like a German, toying with words, experimenting with their combinations, matching them as carefully as pearls for a necklace. "Nietzsche," says one critic,[18] "whether for good or evil, introduced Romance (not romantic!) qualities of terseness and clearness into German prose; it was his endeavor to free it from those elements which he described as _deutsch und schwer_." (German and heavy.) For the rest, he denounced Klopstock, Herder, Wieland, Lessing and Schiller, the remaining gods in Germany's literary valhalla, even more bitterly than he denounced Kant and Hegel, the giants of orthodox German philosophy. [1] "The Revival of Aristocracy," London, 1906, pp. 14-59. [2] "Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work," New York, 1909, pp. 315-320. [3] "_Nietzsche et l'Immoralisme_," Paris, 1902, p. 294. [4] "Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet," London, 1901, pp. xi-xxiii. [5] "_Von Darwin bis Nietzsche_," Leipsic, 1895. [6] "Nietzsche," Boston, 1912, pp. 18-45. [7] "_De Kant à Nietzsche,_" Paris, 1900. [8] Nietzsche himself, in after years, viewed this attack humorously, and was wont to say that it was caused, not by Schopenhauer alone, but also (and chiefly) by the bad cooking of Leipsic. See "_Ecce Homo_," II, i. [9] "_Ecce Homo_," II, 3. [10] Eng. tr. by Steven T. Byington, "The Ego and His Own," New York, 1907. [11] The Leviathan, I, vi; London, 1651. [12] Frau Förster-Nietzsche: "The Life of Nietzsche" (Eng. tr.), Vol. I, p. 31. [13] "_Götzendämmerung_," IX, 49. [14] Heine was a Jew--and Nietzsche, as we know, liked to think himself a Pole. [15] "_Ecce Homo_," II, 4. [16] "_Nietzsche und die Romantik_," Jena, 1905. [17] "_Ecce Homo_," II, 3. [18] J. G. Robertson: "A History of German Literature," Edinburgh, 1902, pp. 611-615. II NIETZSCHE AND HIS CRITICS