NIETZSCHE 



4233 



NIGER 



soprano of the famous Bostonians, and later 

 toured the country at the head of her own com- 

 pany. Believing that she could make no fur- 

 ther progress in this field, she forsook light 

 opera in the height of a successful career, and 

 began life over again as a student. But those 

 years of struggle for supremacy yielded a rich 

 reward. Soon after her operatic debut in Italy, 

 in which she took the part of Marguerite in 

 Faust, engagements followed at all the impor- 

 tant opera houses of Europe; in 1904 she ap- 

 peared with Melba, Destinn, Caruso and others 

 in Don Giovanni. She has distinguished her- 

 ~elf particularly as a singer in Mozart's operas, 

 and has appeared with great success in many 

 roles as a member of the San Carlo, the Boston 

 and the Metropolitan opera companies. 



NIETZSCHE, nc'chch, FRIEDRICH WILHELM 

 (1844-1900), a German philosopher, born near 

 Leipzig. His education was received princi- 

 pally at* the universities of Bonn and Leipzig, 

 and in 1869 he was made professor of classical 

 philology in the University of Basel. Some 

 years later severe eye and brain trouble forced 

 him to retire on a pension; and he spent his 

 time going from one health resort to another 

 until 1888, when he was declared incurably in- 

 sane. Hi- friendship with Wagner ended un- 

 happily with his declaration of Wagner's music 

 as decadent ; losing his faith in Wagner, it was 

 said he also lost his faith in God. In later 

 years he scorned his teacher, Schopenhauer, al- 

 though he did not succeed in producing any- 

 thing in advance of his master's philosophy. 



Owing to Nietzsche's intense emotional and 

 nervous temperament, his writings rise to 

 heights of brilliance, but his philosophy cannot 

 be termed systematic or consistent. He de- 

 nounced the Christian faith, refused longer to 

 accept what are generally termed the Christian 

 virtues, and made of the Superman (Ueber- 

 mensch) his ideal, who should trample under- 

 foot the lowly and weak-spirited and on tin 'in 

 rise to higher things. He revolted against mod- 



1 era ideas of democracy and became an aristo- 

 crat; but also he assailed state supremacy and 



/became an anarchist. Tin- 'will to power" was 

 his guiding i thfl moral man mu-t li\< 



only for self. Hi> writ inns .strengthened t In- 

 fighting spirit of German autocracy. 



So contrary to all accepted principles of 

 tines was all Nietzsche's thinking, so much a 

 revolt against all conventions, that he will 

 doubtless be read be brilliance of 



epigrams and for the fascination of his style. 

 His principal works include The Birth of Trag- 



edy; Thus Spake Zarathiistra ; The Twilight of 

 the Idols; Human, All-Too-Human; The Case 

 of Wagner; Nietzsche contra Wagner; The 

 Will to Power; The Antichrist and his Poems. 



NIFLHEIM, neev"l home, in Norse my- 

 thology, a region of everlasting cold and dark- 

 ness, the abode of Hel, the goddess of death. 

 In one of the Eddas it is told that a messenger, 

 journeying thither to inquire of Hel if Bui 

 son of Odin, could be ransomed, wandered nine 

 days through dark and terrible chasms. Nitt- 

 heim was located under one of the roots of 

 Irasil, the mystic ash tree. Not only the 

 wicked were cast into this cheerless place, but 

 all those who died of sickness or old age. Con- 

 sequently many took their own lives in order to 

 save themselves from the fate decreed those 

 who died inploriously. 



NIGER, ni'jer, or JOLIBA, jol'iba, tin- 

 third largest river of Africa, ranking next to 

 the Congo and the Nile, and the only one on 

 that continent affording to light-draught steam- 

 ers a watercourse, free from rapids, communi- 

 cating with regions far in the interior. Tit 

 does by means of its chief tributary, the Benm\ 

 which joins the larger stream 250 miles from 

 the mouth, and has itself a navigable stretch 

 of 600 miles. Railroads connect the Niger with 

 the Senegal and with the Guinea coast. Tin- 

 great river rises in West Africa only 150 mile- 

 from the Atlantic coast, but so de\ . 

 course that it flows for about 2.600 miles h 

 reaching its outlet on the Gulf of Guinea. It 

 empties into the gulf through a great delta 

 after describing an immense curve whose direc- 

 tions are northeast, east and southeast. Its to- 

 tal drainage basin, covering an area of 584,000 

 square miles, is almost as large as Alaska. The 

 territory traversed by the Benue and the per- 

 manently navigable portion of the main stream 

 is under British control, while the upper courses 

 flow through French possessions. 



Rabba, 460 miles from the mouth, is the head 



of steam navigation for the year round, and 



below this town tl is a broad, (pint 



r which i> til'ty feet deep in dry seasons and 



M deep at flood time. It* i 

 which extends about 150 miles inlan 

 largest in Africa and covers an area of 14,000 

 square miles. It is a vast swan . m 



which t! l.reaks up into innumerable 



neN that divide and subdivide and cross 

 and intercross in seemingly hopeless confusion. 

 Of the numerous arms of the delta the Nun is 

 the only one used by seagoing vessels. Tl,. 

 Niger was known to geographers of the Middle 



