And no less than this did he exact from all who aspired to be his
disciples and supporters.

But Nietzsche's was a different character. He was Wagner's peer, and,
though thirty years his junior, had his own purposes to follow.
Nietzsche was, as he afterwards realized, under a delusion from the
first. His highly organized musical nature had been taken captive,
intoxicated by Wagner's music. But Nietzsche was a thinker, and it is
contrary to the natural order that the man of thought should serve the
man of action. Nietzsche was incapable of serving Wagner's art and had
to leave him.

Was this a fault in Wagner? Who shall say? If it was, it was a fault
which he shared with every earnest reformer who is not content with
preaching, but enforces his precepts with action. Reform is no
plaything; it cannot be achieved by listening to the well-meant advice
of friends who know no higher goal than personal success, who have no
glimmering of the motives that impel a great soul, who would fain tell
the thunderbolt where it shall strike. Every great man lives alone; he
has no friends and no disciples. His equals follow their own ends; his
inferiors cannot breathe in the regions where he dwells. He must rely
upon himself. Without this full dominion Wagner would not have been
himself; he would never have founded Bayreuth, never have had his
greater works performed, never even have composed them. And this
brings us to the most conspicuous feature of his character, the centre
of everything, namely, his uncompromising sincerity and truthfulness,
qualities so magnificent in him that I doubt whether they have ever
been equalled in any other, qualities which show Wagner no less great
"as man" than he is "as artist."