The next year, 1885, his "Real Utopias" was written in Switzerland,
an attack, in the form of four short stories, on over-civilization,
which won him much applause in Germany. He went to Italy as a
special correspondent for the "Daily News" of Stockholm.
In 1886 the much anticipated second volume of "Marriages" appeared.
These were the short stories, satisfying to the simplest as well as
to the most discriminating minds, that attracted Nietzsche's
attention to Strindberg. A correspondence sprung up between the two
men, referring to which in a letter to Peter Gast, Nietzsche said,
"Strindberg has written to me, and for the first time I sense an
answering note of universality." The mutual admiration and
intellectual sympathies of these two conspicuous creative geniuses
has led a number of critics, including Edmund Gosse, into the error
of attributing to Nietzsche a dominating influence over Strindberg.
It should be remembered, however, the "Countess Julie" and "The
Father," which are cited its the most obvious examples of that
supposed influence, were completed before Strindberg's acquaintance
with Nietzsche's philosophy, and that among others, the late John
Davidson, is also charged with having drawn largely from Nietzsche.
The fact is, that, during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, the most original thinkers of many countries were quite
independently, though less clearly, evolving the same philosophic
principals that the master mind of Nietzsche was radiating in the
almost blinding flashes of his genius.
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