they once kindly offered to all Europe to quaff; but have, on the
contrary, remained the most sober, the most exclusive, the most
feudal, the most conservative people of our continent.

But because the ravages of Democracy have been less felt here than
abroad, because there is a good deal of the mediaeval building left
standing over here, because things have never been carried to that
excess which invariably brings a reaction with it--this reaction has
not set in in this country, and no strong desire for the necessity of
it, no craving for the counterbalancing influence of a Nietzsche, has
arisen yet in the British mind. I cannot help pointing out the grave
consequences of this backwardness of England, which has arisen from
the fact that you have never taken any ideas or theories, not even
your own, seriously. Democracy, dear Englishmen, is like a stream,
which all the peoples of Europe will have to cross: they will come out
of it cleaner, healthier, and stronger, but while the others are
already in the water, plunging, puffing, paddling, losing their
ground, trying to swim, and even half-drowned, you are still standing
on the other side of it, roaring unmercifully about the poor swimmers,
screamers, and fighters below,--but one day you will have to cross
this same river too, and when you enter it the others will just be out
of it, and will laugh at the poor English straggler in their turn!

The third and last reason for the icy silence which has greeted
Nietzsche in this country is due to the fact that he has--as far as I
know--no literary ancestor over here whose teachings could have
prepared you for him. Germany has had her Goethe to do this; France
her Stendhal; in Russia we find that fearless curiosity for all
problems, which is the sign of a youthful, perhaps too youthful
nation; while in Spain, on the other hand, we have an old and