Stein was at this time a very young man, scarcely twenty-six years of age. But there was no German writer of whom greater things were expected than of him. In 1878 he had published a little volume called _The Ideals of Materialism, Lyrical Philosophy._ Friedrich Nietzsche made the acquaintance of the author, in whose essay he recognised a research analogous to his own. He thought that he had found a kindred spirit, a comrade in his task; but this hope deceived him. Fräulein von Meysenbug had prided herself on bringing Heinrich von Stein under Wagner's influence. It was her defect to be always more benevolent than far-sighted. Thanks to her good offices, Wagner's house was opened to Stein as it had been opened ten years earlier to Nietzsche, and there Stein lived in spite of Nietzsche's warning, "You admire Wagner, and it is right that you should do so--provided your admiration does not last long." Wagner talked, and Stein, who could neither free himself from the master's influence nor oppose it, listened. His intellectual quest, which had hitherto been unquiet but fruitful, now came to an end. He closed his notebooks; he was conquered by a man too great for him, sucked in and sucked dry. The works which he published--he died at thirty--are temperate and acute, but they lack one quality, precisely that which gives a high value to his first essays--audacity, daring, the charm of a nascent thought, ill-expressed but intense. Nietzsche continued to interest himself in Stein, and superintended the young man's work and his friendships. "Heinrich von Stein," he wrote in July to Madame Overbeck, "is at present the adorer of Miss Salomé. My successor in that employment as in much else." The danger that Stein ran caused him a great deal of uneasiness. Stein, however, read and appreciated his books, as Nietzsche rejoiced to know. He was strangely moved on receiving the letter, for Stein had seemed to understand _Thus Spake Zarathustra,_ and it might be that a longing for liberty was the explanation of his visit. Stein would make up to him for all the friends that he had lost; and what a revenge, moreover, if he should conquer this disciple of Wagner's, this philosopher from Bayreuth! He hastily sent a welcome, signed "The Solitary of Sils-Maria." There is a possible interpretation of Stein's movements which never occurred to Nietzsche.