either does
Nietzsche, the freethinking radical, recognize that good men have long
ceased taunting other men concerning their parentage, or boasting of
their own.

A man is what he is; and the word "illegitimate" is not in God's
vocabulary, since He smiles on love-children as on none other. If you
know history, you know this: that into their keeping God has largely
given the beauty, talent, energy, strength, skill and power, as well as
that divinity which confuses its possessor with Deity Incarnate.

Wagner might have replied to Nietzsche in kind, and pointed him out as
the product of "tired sheets," to use the phrase of Shakespeare. Wagner
might have said, "Yes, I am a member of that elect class to which belong
William the Conqueror, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, the Empress
Josephine, Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln!" But he didn't--he
did better--he said nothing. Wagner had the pride that scorned a
defense--he realized his priceless birthright, and knew that his mother
and father had dowered him with a divine genius. Let those talk who
could do nothing else: silence was his only answer.

In a year later, Nietzsche was taken to an asylum, dead at the top. He
lingered on until Nineteen Hundred, when his body, too, died, died there
at Weimar, the home of Goethe and the home of Franz Liszt--another of
life's little ironies. It is an obvious thing to say that Friedrich
Nietzsche was insane all the time. The fact is, he was not. He was a
great, sincere and honest soul, intent on living the ideal life. He
wrote thoughts that have passed into the current coin of all the
thinking world. When he praised Wagner to the skies and afterwards
damned him to the lowest depths of perdition, he was sane, and did the
thing that has been done since Cain slew his brother Abel. Take it home
to yourself--haven't the best things and the worst that have ever been
said about you, been expressed by the same person?

The opinion of any one person concerning any man of genius, or any
product of art, is absolutely valueless. Whim, prejudice, personal bias,
and physical condition color our view and tint our opinions, and when we
cease to love a man personally, to condemn his art is an easy and
natural step. What was before pleasing is now preposterous.

Of course, it is all a point of view--a matter of perspective, and most
of us are a trifle out of focus. When we change our opinions we change
our friends.

As a prescription for preserv