Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/165

Friedrich Nietzsche by tears as a sacrificial animal; — knew ye that before?" And if, then, the tragical pain inherent in life be no argument against Joyfulness, the zest of living can be obscured by nothing save the fear of total extinction. To the disciple of Nietzsche, by whom every moment of his existence is realized as a priceless gift, the thought of his irrevocable separation from all things is unbearable. " Was this life?' I shall say to Death. 'Well, then, once more!' " And — to paraphrase Nietzsche's own simile — the insatiable witness of the great tragi-comedy, spectator and participant at once, being loath to leave the theatre, and eager for a repetition of the performance, shouts his endless encore, praying fervently that in the constant repetition of the performance not a single detail of the action be omitted. The yearning for the endlessness not of life at large, not of life on any terms, but of this my life with its ineffable wealth of rapturous moments, works up the extreme optimism of Nietzsche to its stupendous a priori notion of infinity, expressed in the name die ewige Wiederkehr ("Eternal Recurrence"). It is a staggeringly imaginative concept, formed apart from any evidential grounds, and yet fortified with a fair amount of logical armament. The