He now received a letter which was the first sign of his coming fame. In August, 1886, in despair of being listened to by his compatriots, he had sent his book, _Beyond Good and Evil,_ to two foreign readers, to the Dane Georges Brandes, and to the Frenchman Hippolyte Taine. Georges Brandes did not reply. Hippolyte Taine wrote (October 17, 1886) a letter which gave Nietzsche some joy. "On my return from a voyage, I found the book which you were good enough to send me; as you say, it is full of 'thoughts from behind' (_'pensées de derrière_'); the form, which is so lively, so literary, the impassioned style, the often paradoxical turn, will open the eyes of the reader who wants to understand; I will in particular recommend to philosophers your first piece on philosophers and philosophy (pp. 14, 17, 20, 25); but the historians and critics will also have their share in the booty of new ideas (for example 41, 75, 76, 149, 150, &c). What you say of national genius and character in your eighth essay is infinitely suggestive, and I shall re-read this piece, although I find there a far too flattering word relative to myself. You do me a great honour in your letter by putting me by the side of M. Burckhardt of Basle, whom I greatly admire; I think that I was the first man in France to announce in the press his great work upon the _Culture of the Renaissance in Italy...._ With best thanks, I am, "Yours sincerely, "H. TAINE." Paul Lanzky rejoined Friedrich Nietzsche at Ruta. Not having seen him for eighteen months, he was struck by the change which he observed in him. The body was weighed down, the features altered. But the man remained the same; however bitter his life had become, he was still affectionate and naïve, quick to laughter like a child. He brought Lanzky up the mountain which gives at every instant such magnificent views over the snowy Alps and the sea. The two rested in the most beautiful spots; then they gathered up bits of old timber and twigs from the autumn vines and lit fires, Nietzsche saluting the flames and the rising smoke with cries of joy. It was then, it was in this inn at Ruta, that Nietzsche drew up the prefaces to _The Dawn of Day_ and _The Gay Science,_ in which he recounted with so strange a vivacity his spiritual _Odyssey:_ Triebschen and Wagner's friendship; Metz and the discovery of war; Bayreuth, hope and mishap; the rupture with Richard Wagner; the bruising of his love; the cruel years which he spent deprived of poetry and of art; finally Italy, which gave him back both; Venice and Genoa, the two towns which saved him, and the Ligurian coast, Zarathustra's cradle.