Page:The birth of tragedy, or Hellenism and pessimism (Nietzsche).djvu/17

 INTRODUCTION. xi investigations, because a large number of valuable documents were unfortunately destroyed after his breakdown in Turin. The family tradition was that a certain Polish nobleman Nicki (pronounced Nietzky) had obtained the special favour of Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, and had received the rank of Earl from him. When, how ever, Stanislas Leszcysski the Pole became king, our supposed ancestor became involved in a con spiracy in favour of the Saxons and Protestants. He was sentenced to death ; but, taking flight, according to the evidence of the documents, he was ultimately befriended by a certain Earl of Briihl, who gave him a small post in an obscure little provincial town. Occasionally our aged aunts would speak of our great-grandfather Nietzsche, who was said to have died in his ninety-first year, and words always seemed to fail them when they attempted to describe his handsome appearance, good breeding, and vigour. Our ancestors, both on the Nietzsche and the Oehler side, were very long-lived. Of the four pairs of great-grandparents, one great-grandfather reached the age of ninety, five great-grandmothers and -fathers died between eighty-two and eighty-six years of age, and two only failed to reach their seventieth year. The sorrow which hung as a cloud over our branch of the family was our father s death, as the result of a heavy fall, at the age of thirty-eight. One night, upon leaving some friends whom he had accompanied home, he was met at the door of the vicarage by our little dog. The little animal must have got between his feet, for he stumbled and fell