Arthur Symons

Plays, Acting and Music Arthur Symons

I have been reading Nietzsche on the Origin of Tragedy with the delight of one who discovers a new world, which he has seen already in a dream. I never take up Nietzsche without the surprise of finding something familiar. Sometimes it is the answer to a question which I have only asked; sometimes it seems to me that I have guessed at the answer. And, in his restless energy, his hallucinatory, vision, the agility of this climbing mind of the mountains, I find that invigoration which only a "tragic philosopher" can give. "A sort of mystic soul," as he says of himself, "almost the soul of a Mænad, who, troubled, capricious, and half irresolute whether to cede or fly, stammers out something in a foreign tongue."