{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1487/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1487","id":"gutenberg_1487","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1487","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Music","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Nobel Prizes in Literature","Opera","Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883. Ring des Nibelungen"],"text":"Produced by Dianne Bean\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PERFECT WAGNERITE: A COMMENTARY ON THE NIBLUNG'S RING\n\nby Bernard Shaw\n\n\n\n\nPreface to the First German Edition\n\nIn reading through this German version of my book in the Manuscript of\nmy friend Siegfried Trebitsch, I was struck by the inadequacy of the\nmerely negative explanation given by me of the irrelevance of Night\nFalls On The Gods to the general philosophic scheme of The Ring. That\nexplanation is correct as far as it goes; but, put as I put it, it now\nseems to me to suggest that the operatic character of Night Falls On\nThe Gods was the result of indifference or forgetfulness produced by the\nlapse of twenty-five years between the first projection of the work and\nits completion. Now it is clear that in whatever other ways Wagner may\nhave changed, he never became careless and he never became indifferent.\nI have therefore inserted a new section in which I show how the\nrevolutionary history of Western Europe from the Liberal explosion of\n1848 to the confused attempt at a socialist, military, and municipal\nadministration in Paris in 1871 (that is to say, from the beginning of\nThe Niblung's Ring by Wagner to the long-delayed completion of Night\nFalls On The Gods), demonstrated practically that the passing away of\nthe present order was going to be a much more complicated business than\nit appears in Wagner's Siegfried. I have therefore interpolated a new\nchapter which will perhaps induce some readers of the original English\ntext to read the book again in German.\n\nFor some time to come, indeed, I shall have to refer English readers to\nthis German edition as the most complete in existence.\n\nMy obligation to Herr Trebitsch for making me a living German author\ninstead of merely a translated English one is so great that I am bound\nto point out that he is not responsible for my views or Wagner's, and\nthat it is as an artist and a man of letters, and not as a propagandist,\nthat he is conveying to the German speaking peoples political criticisms\nwhich occasionally reflect on contemporary authorities with a European\nreputation for sensitiveness. And as the very sympathy which makes his\ntranslations so excellent may be regarded with suspicion, let me hasten\nto declare I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my nature most\nstrongly. Not that I like the average German: nobody does, even in his\nown country. But then the average man is not popular anywhere; and as\nno German considers himself an average one, each reader will, as an\nexceptional man, sympathize with my dislike of the common herd. And if\nI cannot love the typical modern German, I can at least pity and\nunderstand him. His worst fault is that he cannot see that it is\npossible to have too much of a good thing. Being convinced that duty,\nindustry, education, loyalty, patriotism and respectability are\ngood things (and I am magnanimous enough to admit that they are not\naltogether bad things when taken in strict moderation at the right\ntime and in the right place), he indulges in them on all occasions\nshamelessly and excessively. He commits hideous crimes when crime is\npresented to him as part of his duty; his craze for work is more ruinous\nthan the craze for drink; when he can afford secondary education for his\nsons you find three out of every five of them with their minds lamed\nfor life by examinations which only a thoroughly wooden head could go\nthrough with impunity; and if a king is patriotic and respectable (few\nkings are) he puts up statues to him and exalts him above Charlemagne\nand Henry the Fowler. And when he meets a man of genius, he\ninstinctively insults him, starves him, and, if possible, imprisons and\nkills him.\n\nNow I do not pretend to be perfect myself. Heaven knows I have to\nstruggle hard enough every day with what the Germans call my\nhigher impulses. I know too well the temptation to be moral, to be\nself-sacrificing, to be loyal and patriotic, to be respectable and\nwell-spoken of. But I wrestle with it and--as far as human fraility will\nallow--conquer it, whereas the German abandons himself to it without\nscruple or reflection, and is actually proud of his pious intemperance\nand self-indulgence. Nothing will cure him of this mania. It may end\nin starvation, crushing taxation, suppression of all freedom to try\nnew social experiments and reform obsolete institutions, in snobbery,\njobbery, idolatry, and an omnipresent tyranny in which his doctor and\nhis schoolmaster, his lawyer and his priest, coerce him worse than\nany official or drill sergeant: no matter: it is respectable, says the\nGerman, therefore it must be good, and cannot be carried too far;\nand everybody who rebels against it must be a rascal. Even the\nSocial-Democrats in Germany differ from the rest only in carrying\nacademic orthodoxy beyond human endurance--beyond even German endurance.\nI am a Socialist and a Democrat myself, the hero of a hundred platforms,\none of the leaders of the most notable Socialist organizations in\nEngland. I am as conspicuous in English Socialism as Bebel is in German\nSocialism; but do you suppose that the German Social-Democrats tolerate\nme? Not a bit of it. I have begged again and again to be taken to the\nbosom of my German comrades. I have pleaded that the Super-Proletarians\nof all lands should unite. I have pointed out that the German\nSocial-Democratic party has done nothing at its Congresses for the last\nten years except the things I told them to do ten years before, and that\nits path is white with the bones of the Socialist superstitions I and my\nfellow Fabians have slain. Useless. They do not care a rap whether I\nam a Socialist or not. All they want to know is; Am I orthodox? Am I\ncorrect in my revolutionary views? Am I reverent to the revolutionary\nauthorities? Because I am a genuine free-thinker they look at me as a\npoliceman looks at a midnight prowler or as a Berlin bourgeois looks\nat a suspicious foreigner. They ask \"Do you believe that Marx was\nomniscient and infallible; that Engels was his prophet; that Bebel and\nSinger are his inspired apostles; and that Das Kapital is the Bible?\"\nHastening in my innocence to clear myself of what I regard as an\naccusation of credulity and ignorance, I assure them earnestly that\nI know ten times as much of economics and a hundred times as much of\npractical administration as Marx did; that I knew Engels personally and\nrather liked him as a witty and amiable old 1848 veteran who despised\nmodern Socialism; that I regard Bebel and Singer as men of like passions\nwith myself, but considerably less advanced; and that I read Das Kapital\nin the year 1882 or thereabouts, and still consider it one of the\nmost important books of the nineteenth century because of its power\nof changing the minds of those who read it, in spite of its unsound\ncapitalist economics, its parade of quotations from books which the\nauthor had either not read or not understood, its affectation of\nalgebraic formulas, and its general attempt to disguise a masterpiece\nof propagandist journalism and prophetic invective as a drily scientific\ntreatise of the sort that used to impose on people in 1860, when any\nbook that pretended to be scientific was accepted as a Bible. In those\ndays Darwin and Helmholtz were the real fathers of the Church; and\nnobody would listen to religion, poetry or rhetoric; so that even\nSocialism had to call itself \"scientific,\" and predict the date of the\nrevolution, as if it were a comet, by calculations founded on \"historic\nlaws.\"\n\nTo my amazement these reasonable remarks were received as hideous\nblasphemies; none of the party papers were allowed to print any word\nof mine; the very Revisionists themselves found that the scandal of my\nheresy damaged them more than my support aided them; and I found myself\nan outcast from German Social-Democracy at the moment when, thanks to\nTrebitsch, the German bourgeoisie and nobility began to smile on me,\nseduced by the pleasure of playing with fire, and perhaps by Agnes\nSorma's acting as Candida.\n\nThus you may see that when a German, by becoming a Social-Democrat,\nthrows off all the bonds of convention, and stands free from all\nallegiance to established religion, law, order, patriotism, and\nlearning, he promptly uses his freedom to put on a headier set of\nchains; expels anti-militarists with the blood-thirstiest martial\nanti-foreign ardor; and gives the Kaiser reason to thank heaven that he\nwas born in the comparative freedom and Laodicean tolerance of Kingship,\nand not in the Calvinistic bigotry and pedantry of Marxism.\n\nWhy, then, you may ask, do I say that I am bound to Germany by the ties\nthat hold my nature most strongly? Very simply because I should have\nperished of despair in my youth but for the world created for me by that\ngreat German dynasty which began with Bach and will perhaps not end with\nRichard Strauss. Do not suppose for a moment that I learnt my art from\nEnglish men of letters. True, they showed me how to handle English\nwords; but if I had known no more than that, my works would never\nhave crossed the Channel. My masters were the masters of a universal\nlanguage: they were, to go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn,\nMozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these\nmen, they would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand\nthem, and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after\nwhich they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy conscience.\nFor their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the Holy Land of the\ncapitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' sakes, is the Holy Land\nof the early unvulgarized Renascence; France, for its builders'\nsakes, of the age of Christian chivalry and faith; and Greece, for its\nsculptors' sakes, of the Periclean age.\n\nThese Holy Lands are my fatherlands: in them alone am I truly at home:\nall my work is but to bring the whole world under this sanctification.\n\nAnd so, O worthy, respectable, dutiful, patriotic, brave, industrious\nGerman reader, you who used to fear only God and your own conscience,\nand now fear nothing at all, here is my book for you; and--in all\nsincerity--much good may it do you!\n\nLondon, 23rd. October 1907.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION\n\nThe preparation of a Second Edition of this booklet is quite the most\nunexpected literary task that has ever been set me. When it first\nappeared I was ungrateful enough to remonstrate with its publisher for\nprinting, as I thought, more copies than the most sanguine Wagnerite\ncould ever hope to sell. But the result proved that exactly one person\nbuys a copy on every day in the year, including Sundays; and so, in the\nprocess of the suns, a reprint has become necessary.\n\nSave a few verbal slips of no importance, I have found nothing to alter\nin this edition. As usual, the only protests the book has elicited are\nprotests, not against the opinions it expresses, but against the facts\nit records. There are people who cannot bear to be told that their\nhero was associated with a famous Anarchist in a rebellion; that he\nwas proclaimed as \"wanted\" by the police; that he wrote revolutionary\npamphlets; and that his picture of Niblunghome under the reign of\nAlberic is a poetic vision of unregulated industrial capitalism as it\nwas made known in Germany in the middle of the nineteenth century by\nEngels's Condition of the Laboring classes in England. They frantically\ndeny these facts, and then declare that I have connected them with\nWagner in a paroxysm of senseless perversity. I am sorry I have hurt\nthem; and I appeal to charitable publishers to bring out a new life of\nWagner, which shall describe him as a court musician of unquestioned\nfashion and orthodoxy, and a pillar of the most exclusive Dresden\ncircles. Such a work, would, I believe, have a large sale, and be read\nwith satisfaction and reassurance by many lovers of Wagner's music.\n\nAs to my much demurred-to relegation of Night Falls On The Gods to\nthe category of grand opera, I have nothing to add or withdraw. Such a\nclassification is to me as much a matter of fact as the Dresden rising\nor the police proclamation; but I shall not pretend that it is a matter\nof such fact as everybody's judgment can grapple with. People who prefer\ngrand opera to serious music-drama naturally resent my placing a very\ngrand opera below a very serious music-drama. The ordinary lover of\nShakespeare would equally demur to my placing his popular catchpenny\nplays, of which As You Like It is an avowed type, below true\nShakespearean plays like Measure for Measure. I cannot help that.\nPopular dramas and operas may have overwhelming merits as enchanting\nmake-believes; but a poet's sincerest vision of the world must always\ntake precedence of his prettiest fool's paradise.\n\nAs many English Wagnerites seem to be still under the impression that\nWagner composed Rienzi in his youth, Tannhauser and Lohengrin in his\nmiddle age, and The Ring in his later years, may I again remind them\nthat The Ring was the result of a political convulsion which occurred\nwhen Wagner was only thirty-six, and that the poem was completed when\nhe was forty, with thirty more years of work before him? It is as much\na first essay in political philosophy as Die Feen is a first essay in\nromantic opera. The attempt to recover its spirit twenty years later,\nwhen the music of Night Falls On The Gods was added, was an attempt to\nrevive the barricades of Dresden in the Temple of the Grail. Only those\nwho have never had any political enthusiasms to survive can believe that\nsuch an attempt could succeed. G. B. S.\n\n      London, 1901\n\n\n\n\nPreface to the First Edition\n\nThis book is a commentary on The Ring of the Niblungs, Wagner's chief\nwork. I offer it to those enthusiastic admirers of Wagner who are unable\nto follow his ideas, and do not in the least understand the dilemma of\nWotan, though they are filled with indignation at the irreverence of the\nPhilistines who frankly avow that they find the remarks of the god too\noften tedious and nonsensical. Now to be devoted to Wagner merely as a\ndog is devoted to his master, sharing a few elementary ideas, appetites\nand emotions with him, and, for the rest, reverencing his superiority\nwithout understanding it, is no true Wagnerism. Yet nothing better\nis possible without a stock of ideas common to master and disciple.\nUnfortunately, the ideas of the revolutionary Wagner of 1848 are taught\nneither by the education nor the experience of English and American\ngentlemen-amateurs, who are almost always political mugwumps, and hardly\never associate with revolutionists. The earlier attempts to translate\nhis numerous pamphlets and essays into English, resulted in ludicrous\nmixtures of pure nonsense with the absurdest distorsions of his ideas\ninto the ideas of the translators. We now have a translation which is a\nmasterpiece of interpretation and an eminent addition to our literature;\nbut that is not because its author, Mr. Ashton Ellis, knows the German\ndictionary better than his predecessors. He is simply in possession of\nWagner's ideas, which were to them inconceivable.\n\nAll I pretend to do in this book is to impart the ideas which are most\nlikely to be lacking in the conventional Englishman's equipment. I came\nby them myself much as Wagner did, having learnt more about music\nthan about anything else in my youth, and sown my political wild oats\nsubsequently in the revolutionary school. This combination is not common\nin England; and as I seem, so far, to be the only publicly articulate\nresult of it, I venture to add my commentary to what has already been\nwritten by musicians who are no revolutionists, and revolutionists who\nare no musicians. G. B. S.\n\n\n\n\n     Preliminary Encouragements\n     The Ring of the Niblungs\n     The Rhine Gold\n     Wagner as Revolutionist\n     The Valkyries\n     Siegfried\n     Siegfried as Protestant\n     Night Falls On The Gods\n     Why He Changed His Mind\n     Wagner's Own Explanation\n     The Music of The Ring\n     The Old and the New Music\n     The Nineteenth Century\n     The Music of the Future\n     Bayreuth\n\n\n\n\nTHE PERFECT WAGNERITE\n\n\n\n\nPRELIMINARY ENCOURAGEMENTS\n\nA few of these will be welcome to the ordinary citizen visiting the\ntheatre to satisfy his curiosity, or his desire to be in the fashion,\nby witnessing a representation of Richard Wagner's famous Ring of the\nNiblungs.\n\nFirst, The Ring, with all its gods and giants and dwarfs, its\nwater-maidens and Valkyries, its wishing-cap, magic ring, enchanted\nsword, and miraculous treasure, is a drama of today, and not of a remote\nand fabulous antiquity. It could not have been written before the second\nhalf of the nineteenth century, because it deals with events which were\nonly then consummating themselves. Unless the spectator recognizes in\nit an image of the life he is himself fighting his way through, it must\nneeds appear to him a monstrous development of the Christmas pantomimes,\nspun out here and there into intolerable lengths of dull conversation by\nthe principal baritone. Fortunately, even from this point of view, The\nRing is full of extraordinarily attractive episodes, both orchestral and\ndramatic. The nature music alone--music of river and rainbow, fire and\nforest--is enough to bribe people with any love of the country in them\nto endure the passages of political philosophy in the sure hope of a\nprettier page to come. Everybody, too, can enjoy the love music, the\nhammer and anvil music, the clumping of the giants, the tune of the\nyoung woodsman's horn, the trilling of the bird, the dragon music and\nnightmare music and thunder and lightning music, the profusion of simple\nmelody, the sensuous charm of the orchestration: in short, the vast\nextent of common ground between The Ring and the ordinary music we use\nfor play and pleasure. Hence it is that the four separate music-plays\nof which it is built have become popular throughout Europe as operas. We\nshall presently see that one of them, Night Falls On The Gods, actually\nis an opera.\n\nIt is generally understood, however, that there is an inner ring of\nsuperior persons to whom the whole work has a most urgent and searching\nphilosophic and social significance. I profess to be such a superior\nperson; and I write this pamphlet for the assistance of those who wish\nto be introduced to the work on equal terms with that inner circle of\nadepts.\n\nMy second encouragement is addressed to modest citizens who may suppose\nthemselves to be disqualified from enjoying The Ring by their technical\nignorance of music. They may dismiss all such misgivings speedily and\nconfidently. If the sound of music has any power to move them, they will\nfind that Wagner exacts nothing further. There is not a single bar of\n\"classical music\" in The Ring--not a note in it that has any other point\nthan the single direct point of giving musical expression to the drama.\nIn classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first\nsubjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and\ncodas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal\npoints; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente,\nand other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their\nprettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune. Wagner is never driving at\nanything of this sort any more than Shakespeare in his plays is driving\nat such ingenuities of verse-making as sonnets, triolets, and the like.\nAnd this is why he is so easy for the natural musician who has had no\nacademic teaching. The professors, when Wagner's music is played to\nthem, exclaim at once \"What is this? Is it aria, or recitative? Is there\nno cabaletta to it--not even a full close? Why was that discord not\nprepared; and why does he not resolve it correctly? How dare he indulge\nin those scandalous and illicit transitions into a key that has not\none note in common with the key he has just left? Listen to those false\nrelations! What does he want with six drums and eight horns when Mozart\nworked miracles with two of each? The man is no musician.\" The layman\nneither knows nor cares about any of these things. If Wagner were to\nturn aside from his straightforward dramatic purpose to propitiate the\nprofessors with correct exercises in sonata form, his music would at\nonce become unintelligible to the unsophisticated spectator, upon whom\nthe familiar and dreaded \"classical\" sensation would descend like the\ninfluenza. Nothing of the kind need be dreaded. The unskilled, untaught\nmusician may approach Wagner boldly; for there is no possibility of a\nmisunderstanding between them: The Ring music is perfectly single and\nsimple. It is the adept musician of the old school who has everything to\nunlearn: and him I leave, unpitied, to his fate.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RING OF THE NIBLUNGS\n\nThe Ring consists of four plays, intended to be performed on four\nsuccessive evenings, entitled The Rhine Gold (a prologue to the other\nthree), The Valkyries, Siegfried, and Night Falls On The Gods; or, in\nthe original German, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Die\nGotterdammerung.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RHINE GOLD\n\nLet me assume for a moment that you are a young and good-looking woman.\nTry to imagine yourself in that character at Klondyke five years ago.\nThe place is teeming with gold. If you are content to leave the gold\nalone, as the wise leave flowers without plucking them, enjoying with\nperfect naivete its color and glitter and preciousness, no human being\nwill ever be the worse for your knowledge of it; and whilst you remain\nin that frame of mind the golden age will endure.\n\nNow suppose a man comes along: a man who has no sense of the golden\nage, nor any power of living in the present: a man with common desires,\ncupidities, ambitions, just like most of the men you know. Suppose you\nreveal to that man the fact that if he will only pluck this gold up,\nand turn it into money, millions of men, driven by the invisible whip\nof hunger, will toil underground and overground night and day to pile\nup more and more gold for him until he is master of the world! You will\nfind that the prospect will not tempt him so much as you might imagine,\nbecause it involves some distasteful trouble to himself to start with,\nand because there is something else within his reach involving no\ndistasteful toil, which he desires more passionately; and that is\nyourself. So long as he is preoccupied with love of you, the gold, and\nall that it implies, will escape him: the golden age will endure. Not\nuntil he forswears love will he stretch out his hand to the gold, and\nfound the Plutonic empire for himself. But the choice between love and\ngold may not rest altogether with him. He may be an ugly, ungracious,\nunamiable person, whose affections may seem merely ludicrous and\ndespicable to you. In that case, you may repulse him, and most bitterly\nhumiliate and disappoint him. What is left to him then but to curse the\nlove he can never win, and turn remorselessly to the gold? With that,\nhe will make short work of your golden age, and leave you lamenting its\nlost thoughtlessness and sweetness.\n\nIn due time the gold of Klondyke will find its way to the great cities\nof the world. But the old dilemma will keep continually reproducing\nitself. The man who will turn his back on love, and upon all the\nfruitful it, and will set himself single-heartedly to gather gold in an\nexultant dream of wielding its Plutonic powers, will find the treasure\nyielding quickly to his touch. But few men will make this sacrifice\nvoluntarily. Not until the Plutonic power is so strongly set up that the\nhigher human impulses are suppressed as rebellious, and even the mere\nappetites are denied, starved, and insulted when they cannot purchase\ntheir satisfaction with gold, are the energetic spirits driven to build\ntheir lives upon riches. How inevitable that course has become to us is\nplain enough to those who have the power of understanding what they see\nas they look at the plutocratic societies of our modern capitals.\n\nFirst Scene\n\nHere, then, is the subject of the first scene of The Rhine Gold. As\nyou sit waiting for the curtain to rise, you suddenly catch the booming\nground-tone of a mighty river. It becomes plainer, clearer: you get\nnearer to the surface, and catch the green light and the flights of\nbubbles. Then the curtain goes up and you see what you heard--the depths\nof the Rhine, with three strange fairy fishes, half water-maidens,\nsinging and enjoying themselves exuberantly. They are not singing\nbarcarolles or ballads about the Lorely and her fated lovers, but simply\ntrolling any nonsense that comes into their heads in time to the dancing\nof the water and the rhythm of their swimming. It is the golden age; and\nthe attraction of this spot for the Rhine maidens is a lump of the Rhine\ngold, which they value, in an entirely uncommercial way, for its bodily\nbeauty and splendor. Just at present it is eclipsed, because the sun is\nnot striking down through the water.\n\nPresently there comes a poor devil of a dwarf stealing along the\nslippery rocks of the river bed, a creature with energy enough to make\nhim strong of body and fierce of passion, but with a brutish narrowness\nof intelligence and selfishness of imagination: too stupid to see that\nhis own welfare can only be compassed as part of the welfare of the\nworld, too full of brute force not to grab vigorously at his own gain.\nSuch dwarfs are quite common in London. He comes now with a fruitful\nimpulse in him, in search of what he lacks in himself, beauty, lightness\nof heart, imagination, music. The Rhine maidens, representing all these\nto him, fill him with hope and longing; and he never considers that he\nhas nothing to offer that they could possibly desire, being by natural\nlimitation incapable of seeing anything from anyone else's point of\nview. With perfect simplicity, he offers himself as a sweetheart to\nthem. But they are thoughtless, elemental, only half real things, much\nlike modern young ladies. That the poor dwarf is repulsive to their\nsense of physical beauty and their romantic conception of heroism, that\nhe is ugly and awkward, greedy and ridiculous, disposes for them of his\nclaim to live and love. They mock him atrociously, pretending to fall in\nlove with him at first sight, and then slipping away and making game of\nhim, heaping ridicule and disgust on the poor wretch until he is beside\nhimself with mortification and rage. They forget him when the water\nbegins to glitter in the sun, and the gold to reflect its glory. They\nbreak into ecstatic worship of their treasure; and though they know the\nparable of Klondyke quite well, they have no fear that the gold will be\nwrenched away by the dwarf, since it will yield to no one who has not\nforsworn love for it, and it is in pursuit of love that he has come to\nthem. They forget that they have poisoned that desire in him by their\nmockery and denial of it, and that he now knows that life will give him\nnothing that he cannot wrest from it by the Plutonic power. It is just\nas if some poor, rough, vulgar, coarse fellow were to offer to take his\npart in aristocratic society, and be snubbed into the knowledge that\nonly as a millionaire could he ever hope to bring that society to his\nfeet and buy himself a beautiful and refined wife. His choice is forced\non him. He forswears love as thousands of us forswear it every day; and\nin a moment the gold is in his grasp, and he disappears in the depths,\nleaving the water-fairies vainly screaming \"Stop thief!\" whilst the\nriver seems to plunge into darkness and sink from us as we rise to the\ncloud regions above.\n\nAnd now, what forces are there in the world to resist Alberic, our\ndwarf, in his new character of sworn plutocrat? He is soon at\nwork wielding the power of the gold. For his gain, hordes of his\nfellow-creatures are thenceforth condemned to slave miserably,\noverground and underground, lashed to their work by the invisible whip\nof starvation. They never see him, any more than the victims of our\n\"dangerous trades\" ever see the shareholders whose power is nevertheless\neverywhere, driving them to destruction. The very wealth they create\nwith their labor becomes an additional force to impoverish them; for as\nfast as they make it it slips from their hands into the hands of their\nmaster, and makes him mightier than ever. You can see the process for\nyourself in every civilized country today, where millions of people toil\nin want and disease to heap up more wealth for our Alberics, laying up\nnothing for themselves, except sometimes horrible and agonizing disease\nand the certainty of premature death. All this part of the story is\nfrightfully real, frightfully present, frightfully modern; and its\neffects on our social life are so ghastly and ruinous that we no longer\nknow enough of happiness to be discomposed by it. It is only the\npoet, with his vision of what life might be, to whom these things are\nunendurable. If we were a race of poets we would make an end of them\nbefore the end of this miserable century. Being a race of moral dwarfs\ninstead, we think them highly respectable, comfortable and proper, and\nallow them to breed and multiply their evil in all directions. If there\nwere no higher power in the world to work against Alberic, the end of it\nwould be utter destruction.\n\nSuch a force there is, however; and it is called Godhead. The mysterious\nthing we call life organizes itself into all living shapes, bird, beast,\nbeetle and fish, rising to the human marvel in cunning dwarfs and\nin laborious muscular giants, capable, these last, of enduring\ntoil, willing to buy love and life, not with suicidal curses and\nrenunciations, but with patient manual drudgery in the service of higher\npowers. And these higher powers are called into existence by the same\nself-organization of life still more wonderfully into rare persons who\nmay by comparison be called gods, creatures capable of thought, whose\naims extend far beyond the satisfaction of their bodily appetites\nand personal affections, since they perceive that it is only by the\nestablishment of a social order founded on common bonds of moral faith\nthat the world can rise from mere savagery. But how is this order to be\nset up by Godhead in a world of stupid giants, since these thoughtless\nones pursue only their narrower personal ends and can by no means\nunderstand the aims of a god? Godhead, face to face with Stupidity, must\ncompromise. Unable to enforce on the world the pure law of thought, it\nmust resort to a mechanical law of commandments to be enforced by\nbrute punishments and the destruction of the disobedient. And however\ncarefully these laws are framed to represent the highest thoughts of the\nframers at the moment of their promulgation, before a day has elapsed\nthat thought has grown and widened by the ceaseless evolution of life;\nand lo! yesterday's law already fallen out with today's thought. Yet if\nthe high givers of that law themselves set the example of breaking\nit before it is a week old, they destroy all its authority with their\nsubjects, and so break the weapon they have forged to rule them for\ntheir own good. They must therefore maintain at all costs the sanctity\nof the law, even when it has ceased to represent their thought; so that\nat last they get entangled in a network of ordinances which they no\nlonger believe in, and yet have made so sacred by custom and so terrible\nby punishment, that they cannot themselves escape from them. Thus\nGodhead's resort to law finally costs it half its integrity--as if\na spiritual king, to gain temporal power, had plucked out one of his\neyes--and it finally begins secretly to long for the advent of some\npower higher than itself which will destroy its artificial empire of\nlaw, and establish a true republic of free thought.\n\nThis is by no means the only difficulty in the dominion of Law. The\nbrute force for its execution must be purchased; and the mass of its\nsubjects must be persuaded to respect the authority which employs this\nforce. But how is such respect to be implanted in them if they are\nunable to comprehend the thought of the lawgiver? Clearly, only by\nassociating the legislative power with such displays of splendor and\nmajesty as will impress their senses and awe their imaginations. The god\nturned lawgiver, in short, must be crowned Pontiff and King. Since he\ncannot be known to the common folk as their superior in wisdom, he must\nbe known to them as their superior in riches, as the dweller in castles,\nthe wearer of gold and purple, the eater of mighty feasts, the commander\nof armies, and the wielder of powers of life and death, of salvation\nand damnation after death. Something may be done in this way without\ncorruption whilst the golden age still endures. Your gods may not\nprevail with the dwarfs; but they may go to these honest giants who will\ngive a day's work for a day's pay, and induce them to build for Godhead\na mighty fortress, complete with hall and chapel, tower and bell, for\nthe sake of the homesteads that will grow up in security round that\nchurch-castle. This only, however, whilst the golden age lasts. The\nmoment the Plutonic power is let loose, and the loveless Alberic comes\ninto the field with his corrupting millions, the gods are face to face\nwith destruction; since Alberic, able with invisible hunger-whip to\nforce the labor of the dwarfs and to buy the services of the giants,\ncan outshine all the temporal shows and splendors of the golden age,\nand make himself master of the world, unless the gods, with their bigger\nbrains, can capture his gold. This, the dilemma of the Church today,\nis the situation created by the exploit of Alberic in the depths of the\nRhine.\n\nSecond Scene\n\nFrom the bed of the river we rise into cloudy regions, and finally come\nout into the clear in a meadow, where Wotan, the god of gods, and his\nconsort Fricka lie sleeping. Wotan, you will observe, has lost one eye;\nand you will presently learn that he plucked it out voluntarily as the\nprice to be paid for his alliance with Fricka, who in return has brought\nto him as her dowry all the powers of Law. The meadow is on the brink of\na ravine, beyond which, towering on distant heights, stands Godhome, a\nmighty castle, newly built as a house of state for the one-eyed god and\nhis all-ruling wife. Wotan has not yet seen this castle except in his\ndreams: two giants have just built it for him whilst he slept; and the\nreality is before him for the first time when Fricka wakes him. In that\nmajestic burg he is to rule with her and through her over the humble\ngiants, who have eyes to gape at the glorious castles their own\nhands have built from his design, but no brains to design castles for\nthemselves, or to comprehend divinity. As a god, he is to be great,\nsecure, and mighty; but he is also to be passionless, affectionless,\nwholly impartial; for Godhead, if it is to live with Law, must have no\nweaknesses, no respect for persons. All such sweet littlenesses must be\nleft to the humble stupid giants to make their toil sweet to them; and\nthe god must, after all, pay for Olympian power the same price the dwarf\nhas paid for Plutonic power.\n\nWotan has forgotten this in his dreams of greatness. Not so Fricka. What\nshe is thinking of is this price that Wotan has consented to pay,\nin token whereof he has promised this day to hand over to the giants\nFricka's sister, the goddess Freia, with her golden love-apples. When\nFricka reproaches Wotan with having selfishly forgotten this, she finds\nthat he, like herself, is not prepared to go through with his bargain,\nand that he is trusting to another great worldforce, the Lie (a European\nPower, as Lassalle said), to help him to trick the giants out of their\nreward. But this force does not dwell in Wotan himself, but in another,\na god over whom he has triumphed, one Loki, the god of Intellect,\nArgument, Imagination, Illusion, and Reason. Loki has promised to\ndeliver him from his contract, and to cheat the giants for him; but he\nhas not arrived to keep his word: indeed, as Fricka bitterly points\nout, why should not the Lie fail Wotan, since such failure is the very\nessence of him?\n\nThe giants come soon enough; and Freia flies to Wotan for protection\nagainst them. Their purposes are quite honest; and they have no doubt\nof the god's faith. There stands their part of the contract fulfilled,\nstone on stone, port and pinnacle all faithfully finished from Wotan's\ndesign by their mighty labor. They have come undoubtingly for their\nagreed wage. Then there happens what is to them an incredible,\ninconceivable thing. The god begins to shuffle. There are no moments in\nlife more tragic than those in which the humble common man, the manual\nworker, leaving with implicit trust all high affairs to his betters, and\nreverencing them wholly as worthy of that trust, even to the extent\nof accepting as his rightful function the saving of them from all\nroughening and coarsening drudgeries, first discovers that they are\ncorrupt, greedy, unjust and treacherous. The shock drives a ray of\nprophetic light into one giant's mind, and gives him a momentary\neloquence. In that moment he rises above his stupid gianthood, and\nearnestly warns the Son of Light that all his power and eminence of\npriesthood, godhood, and kingship must stand or fall with the unbearable\ncold greatness of the incorruptible law-giver. But Wotan, whose assumed\ncharacter of law-giver is altogether false to his real passionate\nnature, despises the rebuke; and the giant's ray of insight is lost in\nthe murk of his virtuous indignation.\n\nIn the midst of the wrangle, Loki comes at last, excusing himself\nfor being late on the ground that he has been detained by a matter of\nimportance which he has promised to lay before Wotan. When pressed to\ngive his mind to the business immediately in hand, and to extricate\nWotan from his dilemma, he has nothing to say except that the giants are\nevidently altogether in the right. The castle has been duly built: he\nhas tried every stone of it, and found the work first-rate: there is\nnothing to be done but pay the price agreed upon by handing over Freia\nto the giants. The gods are furious; and Wotan passionately declares\nthat he only consented to the bargain on Loki's promise to find a way\nfor him out of it. But Loki says no: he has promised to find a way out\nif any such way exist, but not to make a way if there is no way. He has\nwandered over the whole earth in search of some treasure great enough\nto buy Freia back from the giants; but in all the world he has found\nnothing for which Man will give up Woman. And this, by the way, reminds\nhim of the matter he had promised to lay before Wotan. The Rhine maidens\nhave complained to him of Alberic's theft of their gold; and he mentions\nit as a curious exception to his universal law of the unpurchasable\npreciousness of love, that this gold-robber has forsworn love for the\nsake of the fabulous riches of the Plutonic empire and the mastery of\nthe world through its power.\n\nNo sooner is the tale told than the giants stoop lower than the dwarf.\nAlberic forswore love only when it was denied to him and made the\ninstrument for cruelly murdering his self-respect. But the giants,\nwith love within their reach, with Freia and her golden apples in their\nhands, offer to give her up for the treasure of Alberic. Observe, it\nis the treasure alone that they desire. They have no fierce dreams\nof dominion over their superiors, or of moulding the world to any\nconceptions of their own. They are neither clever nor ambitious: they\nsimply covet money. Alberic's gold: that is their demand, or else Freia,\nas agreed upon, whom they now carry off as hostage, leaving Wotan to\nconsider their ultimatum.\n\nFreia gone, the gods begin to wither and age: her golden apples, which\nthey so lightly bargained away, they now find to be a matter of life and\ndeath to them; for not even the gods can live on Law and Godhead alone,\nbe their castles ever so splendid. Loki alone is unaffected: the Lie,\nwith all its cunning wonders, its glistenings and shiftings and mirages,\nis a mere appearance: it has no body and needs no food. What is Wotan\nto do? Loki sees the answer clearly enough: he must bluntly rob Alberic.\nThere is nothing to prevent him except moral scruple; for Alberic, after\nall, is a poor, dim, dwarfed, credulous creature whom a god can outsee\nand a lie can outwit. Down, then, Wotan and Loki plunge into the mine\nwhere Alberic's slaves are piling up wealth for him under the invisible\nwhip.\n\nThird Scene\n\nThis gloomy place need not be a mine: it might just as well be a\nmatch-factory, with yellow phosphorus, phossy jaw, a large dividend, and\nplenty of clergymen shareholders. Or it might be a whitelead factory,\nor a chemical works, or a pottery, or a railway shunting yard, or a\ntailoring shop, or a little gin-sodden laundry, or a bakehouse, or a big\nshop, or any other of the places where human life and welfare are daily\nsacrificed in order that some greedy foolish creature may be able to\nhymn exultantly to his Platonic idol:\n\nThou mak'st me eat whilst others starve, And sing while others do\nlament: Such untome Thy blessings are, As if I were Thine only care.\n\nIn the mine, which resounds with the clinking anvils of the dwarfs\ntoiling miserably to heap up treasure for their master, Alberic has set\nhis brother Mime--more familiarly, Mimmy--to make him a helmet. Mimmy\ndimly sees that there is some magic in this helmet, and tries to keep\nit; but Alberic wrests it from him, and shows him, to his cost, that it\nis the veil of the invisible whip, and that he who wears it can appear\nin what shape he will, or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is\na very common article in our streets, where it generally takes the form\nof a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes\nhim into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber to\nhospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and father, a\nshrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, when he is\nreally a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, consuming a great deal,\nand producing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, believing\nnothing, and doing nothing except what all the rest do, and that only\nbecause he is afraid not to do it, or at least pretend to do it.\n\nWhen Wotan and Loki arrive, Loki claims Alberic as an old acquaintance.\nBut the dwarf has no faith in these civil strangers: Greed instinctively\nmistrusts Intellect, even in the garb of Poetry and the company of\nGodhead, whilst envying the brilliancy of the one and the dignity of the\nother. Alberic breaks out at them with a terrible boast of the power now\nwithin his grasp. He paints for them the world as it will be when his\ndominion over it is complete, when the soft airs and green mosses of\nits valleys shall be changed into smoke, slag, and filth; when slavery,\ndisease, and squalor, soothed by drunkenness and mastered by the\npoliceman's baton, shall become the foundation of society; and when\nnothing shall escape ruin except such pretty places and pretty women as\nhe may like to buy for the slaking of his own lusts. In that kingdom of\nevil he sees that there will be no power but his own. These gods, with\ntheir moralities and legalities and intellectual subtlety, will go under\nand be starved out of existence. He bids Wotan and Loki beware of\nit; and his \"Hab' Acht!\" is hoarse, horrible, and sinister. Wotan\nis revolted to the very depths of his being: he cannot stifle the\nexecration that bursts from him. But Loki is unaffected: he has no moral\npassion: indignation is as absurd to him as enthusiasm. He finds it\nexquisitely amusing--having a touch of the comic spirit in him--that the\ndwarf, in stirring up the moral fervor of Wotan, has removed his last\nmoral scruple about becoming a thief. Wotan will now rob the dwarf\nwithout remorse; for is it not positively his highest duty to take this\npower out of such evil hands and use it himself in the interests of\nGodhead? On the loftiest moral grounds, he lets Loki do his worst.\n\nA little cunningly disguised flattery makes short work of Alberic. Loki\npretends to be afraid of him; and he swallows that bait unhesitatingly.\nBut how, enquires Loki, is he to guard against the hatred of his million\nslaves? Will they not steal from him, whilst he sleeps, the magic ring,\nthe symbol of his power, which he has forged from the gold of the Rhine?\n\"You think yourself very clever,\" sneers Alberic, and then begins to\nboast of the enchantments of the magic helmet. Loki refuses to believe\nin such marvels without witnessing them. Alberic, only too glad to\nshow off his powers, puts on the helmet and transforms himself into a\nmonstrous serpent. Loki gratifies him by pretending to be frightened out\nof his wits, but ventures to remark that it would be better still if the\nhelmet could transform its owner into some tiny creature that could hide\nand spy in the smallest cranny. Alberic promptly transforms himself\ninto a toad. In an instant Wotan's foot is on him; Loki tears away the\nhelmet; they pinion him, and drag him away a prisoner up through the\nearth to the meadow by the castle.\n\nFourth Scene\n\nThere, to pay for his freedom, he has to summon his slaves from the\ndepths to place all the treasure they have heaped up for him at the feet\nof Wotan. Then he demands his liberty; but Wotan must have the ring\nas well. And here the dwarf, like the giant before him, feels the very\nfoundations of the world shake beneath him at the discovery of his\nown base cupidity in a higher power. That evil should, in its loveless\ndesperation, create malign powers which Godhead could not create, seems\nbut natural justice to him. But that Godhead should steal those malign\npowers from evil, and wield them itself, is a monstrous perversion; and\nhis appeal to Wotan to forego it is almost terrible in its conviction\nof wrong. It is of no avail. Wotan falls back again on virtuous\nindignation. He reminds Alberic that he stole the gold from the\nRhine maidens, and takes the attitude of the just judge compelling a\nrestitution of stolen goods. Alberic knowing perfectly well that the\njudge is taking the goods to put them in his own pocket, has the ring\ntorn from his finger, and is once more as poor as he was when he came\nslipping and stumbling among the slimy rocks in the bed of the Rhine.\n\nThis is the way of the world. In older times, when the Christian laborer\nwas drained dry by the knightly spendthrift, and the spendthrift was\ndrained by the Jewish usurer, Church and State, religion and law, seized\non the Jew and drained him as a Christian duty. When the forces of\nlovelessness and greed had built up our own sordid capitalist systems,\ndriven by invisible proprietorship, robbing the poor, defacing the\nearth, and forcing themselves as a universal curse even on the generous\nand humane, then religion and law and intellect, which would never\nthemselves have discovered such systems, their natural bent being\ntowards welfare, economy, and life instead of towards corruption, waste,\nand death, nevertheless did not scruple to seize by fraud and force\nthese powers of evil on presence of using them for good. And it\ninevitably happens that when the Church, the Law, and all the Talents\nhave made common cause to rob the people, the Church is far more\nvitally harmed by that unfaithfulness to itself than its more mechanical\nconfederates; so that finally they turn on their discredited ally and\nrob the Church, with the cheerful co-operation of Loki, as in France and\nItaly for instance.\n\nThe twin giants come back with their hostage, in whose presence Godhead\nblooms again. The gold is ready for them; but now that the moment has\ncome for parting with Freia the gold does not seem so tempting; and\nthey are sorely loth to let her go. Not unless there is gold enough to\nutterly hide her from them--not until the heap has grown so that they\ncan see nothing but gold--until money has come between them and every\nhuman feeling, will they part with her. There is not gold enough to\naccomplish this: however cunningly Loki spreads it, the glint of Freia's\nhair is still visible to Giant Fafnir, and the magic helmet must go on\nthe heap to shut it out. Even then Fafnir's brother, Fasolt, can catch a\nbeam from her eye through a chink, and is rendered incapable thereby of\nforswearing her. There is nothing to stop that chink but the ring; and\nWotan is as greedily bent on keeping that as Alberic himself was; nor\ncan the other gods persuade him that Freia is worth it, since for\nthe highest god, love is not the highest good, but only the universal\ndelight that bribes all living things to travail with renewed life. Life\nitself, with its accomplished marvels and its infinite potentialities,\nis the only force that Godhead can worship. Wotan does not yield until\nhe is reached by the voice of the fruitful earth that before he or the\ndwarfs or the giants or the Law or the Lie or any of these things were,\nhad the seed of them all in her bosom, and the seed perhaps of something\nhigher even than himself, that shall one day supersede him and cut the\ntangles and alliances and compromises that already have cost him one\nof his eyes. When Erda, the First Mother of life, rises from her\nsleeping-place in the heart of the earth, and warns him to yield the\nring, he obeys her; the ring is added to the heap of gold; and all sense\nof Freia is cut off from the giants.\n\nBut now what Law is left to these two poor stupid laborers whereby one\nshall yield to the other any of the treasure for which they have each\npaid the whole price in surrendering Freia? They look by mere habit\nto the god to judge for them; but he, with his heart stirring towards\nhigher forces than himself, turns with disgust from these lower forces.\nThey settle it as two wolves might; and Fafnir batters his brother dead\nwith his staff. It is a horrible thing to see and hear, to anyone who\nknows how much blood has been shed in the world in just that way by its\nbrutalized toilers, honest fellows enough until their betters betrayed\nthem. Fafnir goes off with his booty. It is quite useless to him. He has\nneither the cunning nor the ambition to establish the Plutonic empire\nwith it. Merely to prevent others from getting it is the only purpose it\nbrings him. He piles it in a cave; transforms himself into a dragon by\nthe helmet; and devotes his life to guarding it, as much a slave to it\nas a jailor is to his prisoner. He had much better have thrown it all\nback into the Rhine and transformed himself into the shortest-lived\nanimal that enjoys at least a brief run in the sunshine. His case,\nhowever, is far too common to be surprising. The world is overstocked\nwith persons who sacrifice all their affections, and madly trample and\nbatter down their fellows to obtain riches of which, when they get them,\nthey are unable to make the smallest use, and to which they become the\nmost miserable slaves.\n\nThe gods soon forget Fafnir in their rejoicing over Freia. Donner,\nthe Thunder god, springs to a rocky summit and calls the clouds as a\nshepherd calls his flocks. They come at his summons; and he and the\ncastle are hidden by their black legions. Froh, the Rainbow god, hastens\nto his side. At the stroke of Donner's hammer the black murk is riven in\nall directions by darting ribbons of lightning; and as the air clears,\nthe castle is seen in its fullest splendor, accessible now by the\nrainbow bridge which Froh has cast across the ravine. In the glory\nof this moment Wotan has a great thought. With all his aspirations\nto establish a reign of noble thought, of righteousness, order, and\njustice, he has found that day that there is no race yet in the world\nthat quite spontaneously, naturally, and unconsciously realizes his\nideal. He himself has found how far short Godhead falls of the thing\nit conceives. He, the greatest of gods, has been unable to control his\nfate: he has been forced against his will to choose between evils, to\nmake disgraceful bargains, to break them still more disgracefully, and\neven then to see the price of his disgrace slip through his fingers.\nHis consort has cost him half his vision; his castle has cost him his\naffections; and the attempt to retain both has cost him his honor. On\nevery side he is shackled and bound, dependent on the laws of Fricka and\non the lies of Loki, forced to traffic with dwarfs for handicraft and\nwith giants for strength, and to pay them both in false coin. After all,\na god is a pitiful thing. But the fertility of the First Mother is not\nyet exhausted. The life that came from her has ever climbed up to a\nhigher and higher organization. From toad and serpent to dwarf, from\nbear and elephant to giant, from dwarf and giant to a god with thoughts,\nwith comprehension of the world, with ideals. Why should it stop there?\nWhy should it not rise from the god to the Hero? to the creature in whom\nthe god's unavailing thought shall have become effective will and life,\nwho shall make his way straight to truth and reality over the laws of\nFricka and the lies of Loki with a strength that overcomes giants and a\ncunning that outwits dwarfs? Yes: Erda, the First Mother, must travail\nagain, and breed him a race of heroes to deliver the world and himself\nfrom his limited powers and disgraceful bargains. This is the vision\nthat flashes on him as he turns to the rainbow bridge and calls his wife\nto come and dwell with him in Valhalla, the home of the gods.\n\nThey are all overcome with Valhalla's glory except Loki. He is behind\nthe scenes of this joint reign of the Divine and the Legal. He despises\nthese gods with their ideals and their golden apples. \"I am ashamed,\" he\nsays, \"to have dealings with these futile creatures.\" And so he follows\nthem to the rainbow bridge. But as they set foot on it, from the river\nbelow rises the wailing of the Rhine maidens for their lost gold. \"You\ndown there in the water,\" cries Loki with brutal irony: \"you used to\nbask in the glitter of your gold: henceforth you shall bask in the\nsplendor of the gods.\" And they reply that the truth is in the depths\nand the darkness, and that what blazes on high there is falsehood. And\nwith that the gods pass into their glorious stronghold.\n\n\n\n\nWAGNER AS REVOLUTIONIST\n\nBefore leaving this explanation of The Rhine Gold, I must have a word or\ntwo about it with the reader. It is the least popular of the sections of\nThe Ring. The reason is that its dramatic moments lie quite outside\nthe consciousness of people whose joys and sorrows are all domestic\nand personal, and whose religions and political ideas are purely\nconventional and superstitious. To them it is a struggle between half a\ndozen fairytale personages for a ring, involving hours of scolding and\ncheating, and one long scene in a dark gruesome mine, with gloomy, ugly\nmusic, and not a glimpse of a handsome young man or pretty woman. Only\nthose of wider consciousness can follow it breathlessly, seeing in it\nthe whole tragedy of human history and the whole horror of the dilemmas\nfrom which the world is shrinking today. At Bayreuth I have seen a party\nof English tourists, after enduring agonies of boredom from Alberic,\nrise in the middle of the third scene, and almost force their way out\nof the dark theatre into the sunlit pine-wood without. And I have\nseen people who were deeply affected by the scene driven almost beside\nthemselves by this disturbance. But it was a very natural thing for the\nunfortunate tourists to do, since in this Rhine Gold prologue there is\nno interval between the acts for escape. Roughly speaking, people who\nhave no general ideas, no touch of the concern of the philosopher and\nstatesman for the race, cannot enjoy The Rhine Gold as a drama. They may\nfind compensations in some exceedingly pretty music, at times even grand\nand glorious, which will enable them to escape occasionally from the\nstruggle between Alberic and Wotan; but if their capacity for music\nshould be as limited as their comprehension of the world, they had\nbetter stay away.\n\nAnd now, attentive Reader, we have reached the point at which some\nfoolish person is sure to interrupt us by declaring that The Rhine Gold\nis what they call \"a work of art\" pure and simple, and that Wagner never\ndreamt of shareholders, tall hats, whitelead factories, and industrial\nand political questions looked at from the socialistic and humanitarian\npoints of view. We need not discuss these impertinences: it is easier\nto silence them with the facts of Wagner's life. In 1843 he obtained\nthe position of conductor of the Opera at Dresden at a salary of L225 a\nyear, with a pension. This was a first-rate permanent appointment in the\nservice of the Saxon State, carrying an assured professional\nposition and livelihood with it In 1848, the year of revolutions,\nthe discontented middle class, unable to rouse the Church-and-State\ngovernments of the day from their bondage to custom, caste, and law by\nappeals to morality or constitutional agitation for Liberal reforms,\nmade common cause with the starving wage-working class, and resorted to\narmed rebellion, which reached Dresden in 1849. Had Wagner been the mere\nmusical epicure and political mugwump that the term \"artist\" seems to\nsuggest to so many critics and amateurs--that is, a creature in their\nown lazy likeness--he need have taken no more part in the political\nstruggles of his day than Bishop took in the English Reform agitation of\n1832, or Sterndale Bennett in the Chartist or Free Trade movements. What\nhe did do was first to make a desperate appeal to the King to cast off\nhis bonds and answer the need of the time by taking true Kingship on\nhimself and leading his people to the redress of their intolerable\nwrongs (fancy the poor monarch's feelings!), and then, when the crash\ncame, to take his side with the right and the poor against the rich and\nthe wrong. When the insurrection was defeated, three leaders of it were\nespecially marked down for vengeance: August Roeckel, an old friend\nof Wagner's to whom he wrote a well-known series of letters; Michael\nBakoonin, afterwards a famous apostle of revolutionary Anarchism; and\nWagner himself. Wagner escaped to Switzerland: Roeckel and Bakoonin\nsuffered long terms of imprisonment. Wagner was of course utterly\nruined, pecuniarily and socially (to his own intense relief and\nsatisfaction); and his exile lasted twelve years. His first idea was\nto get his Tannhauser produced in Paris. With the notion of explaining\nhimself to the Parisians he wrote a pamphlet entitled Art and\nRevolution, a glance through which will show how thoroughly the\nsocialistic side of the revolution had his sympathy, and how completely\nhe had got free from the influence of the established Churches of his\nday. For three years he kept pouring forth pamphlets--some of them\nelaborate treatises in size and intellectual rank, but still essentially\nthe pamphlets and manifestoes of a born agitator--on social evolution,\nreligion, life, art and the influence of riches. In 1853 the poem of The\nRing was privately printed; and in 1854, five years after the Dresden\ninsurrection, The Rhine Gold score was completed to the last drum tap.\n\nThese facts are on official record in Germany, where the proclamation\nsumming up Wagner as \"a politically dangerous person\" may be consulted\nto this day. The pamphlets are now accessible to English readers in the\ntranslation of Mr. Ashton Ellis. This being so, any person who, having\nperhaps heard that I am a Socialist, attempts to persuade you that my\ninterpretation of The Rhine Gold is only \"my socialism\" read into the\nworks of a dilettantist who borrowed an idle tale from an old saga to\nmake an opera book with, may safely be dismissed from your consideration\nas an ignoramus.\n\nIf you are now satisfied that The Rhine Gold is an allegory, do not\nforget that an allegory is never quite consistent except when it\nis written by someone without dramatic faculty, in which case it is\nunreadable. There is only one way of dramatizing an idea; and that is by\nputting on the stage a human being possessed by that idea, yet none the\nless a human being with all the human impulses which make him akin and\ntherefore interesting to us. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, does\nnot, like his unread imitators, attempt to personify Christianity and\nValour: he dramatizes for you the life of the Christian and the Valiant\nMan. Just so, though I have shown that Wotan is Godhead and Kingship,\nand Loki Logic and Imagination without living Will (Brain without Heart,\nto put it vulgarly); yet in the drama Wotan is a religiously moral man,\nand Loki a witty, ingenious, imaginative and cynical one. As to Fricka,\nwho stands for State Law, she does not assume her allegorical character\nin The Rhine Gold at all, but is simply Wotan's wife and Freia's sister:\nnay, she contradicts her allegorical self by conniving at all Wotan's\nrogueries. That, of course, is just what State Law would do; but we must\nnot save the credit of the allegory by a quip. Not until she reappears\nin the next play (The Valkyries) does her function in the allegorical\nscheme become plain.\n\nOne preconception will bewilder the spectator hopelessly unless he\nhas been warned against it or is naturally free from it. In the\nold-fashioned orders of creation, the supernatural personages are\ninvariably conceived as greater than man, for good or evil. In the\nmodern humanitarian order as adopted by Wagner, Man is the highest.\nIn The Rhine Gold, it is pretended that there are as yet no men on the\nearth. There are dwarfs, giants, and gods. The danger is that you will\njump to the conclusion that the gods, at least, are a higher order than\nthe human order. On the contrary, the world is waiting for Man to redeem\nit from the lame and cramped government of the gods. Once grasp that;\nand the allegory becomes simple enough. Really, of course, the dwarfs,\ngiants, and gods are dramatizations of the three main orders of men: to\nwit, the instinctive, predatory, lustful, greedy people; the patient,\ntoiling, stupid, respectful, money-worshipping people; and the\nintellectual, moral, talented people who devise and administer States\nand Churches. History shows us only one order higher than the highest of\nthese: namely, the order of Heroes.\n\nNow it is quite clear--though you have perhaps never thought of it--that\nif the next generation of Englishmen consisted wholly of Julius Caesars,\nall our political, ecclesiastical, and moral institutions would\nvanish, and the less perishable of their appurtenances be classed with\nStonehenge and the cromlechs and round towers as inexplicable relics of\na bygone social order. Julius Caesars would no more trouble themselves\nabout such contrivances as our codes and churches than a fellow of the\nRoyal Society will touch his hat to the squire and listen to the village\ncurate's sermons. This is precisely what must happen some day if life\ncontinues thrusting towards higher and higher organization as it has\nhitherto done. As most of our English professional men are to Australian\nbushmen, so, we must suppose, will the average man of some future day\nbe to Julius Caesar. Let any man of middle age, pondering this prospect\nconsider what has happened within a single generation to the articles\nof faith his father regarded as eternal nay, to the very scepticisms and\nblasphemies of his youth (Bishop Colenso's criticism of the Pentateuch,\nfor example!); and he will begin to realize how much of our barbarous\nTheology and Law the man of the future will do without. Bakoonin, the\nDresden revolutionary leader with whom Wagner went out in 1849, put\nforward later on a program, often quoted with foolish horror, for\nthe abolition of all institutions, religious, political, juridical,\nfinancial, legal, academic, and so on, so as to leave the will of man\nfree to find its own way. All the loftiest spirits of that time were\nburning to raise Man up, to give him self-respect, to shake him out\nof his habit of grovelling before the ideals created by his own\nimagination, of attributing the good that sprang from the ceaseless\nenergy of the life within himself to some superior power in the clouds,\nand of making a fetish of self-sacrifice to justify his own cowardice.\n\nFarther on in The Ring we shall see the Hero arrive and make an end\nof dwarfs, giants, and gods. Meanwhile, let us not forget that godhood\nmeans to Wagner infirmity and compromise, and manhood strength and\nintegrity. Above all, we must understand--for it is the key to much that\nwe are to see--that the god, since his desire is toward a higher and\nfuller life, must long in his inmost soul for the advent of that greater\npower whose first work, though this he does not see as yet, must be his\nown undoing.\n\nIn the midst of all these far-reaching ideas, it is amusing to find\nWagner still full of his ingrained theatrical professionalism, and\nintroducing effects which now seem old-fashioned and stagey with as much\nenergy and earnestness as if they were his loftiest inspirations. When\nWotan wrests the ring from Alberic, the dwarf delivers a lurid and\nbloodcurdling stage curse, calling down on its every future possessor\ncare, fear, and death. The musical phrase accompanying this outburst was\na veritable harmonic and melodic bogey to mid-century ears, though time\nhas now robbed it of its terrors. It sounds again when Fafnir slays\nFasolt, and on every subsequent occasion when the ring brings death to\nits holder. This episode must justify itself purely as a piece of stage\nsensationalism. On deeper ground it is superfluous and confusing, as the\nruin to which the pursuit of riches leads needs no curse to explain it;\nnor is there any sense in investing Alberic with providential powers in\nthe matter.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VALKYRIES\n\nBefore the curtain rises on the Valkyries, let us see what has happened\nsince it fell on The Rhine Gold. The persons of the drama will tell us\npresently; but as we probably do not understand German, that may not\nhelp us.\n\nWotan is still ruling the world in glory from his giant-built castle\nwith his wife Fricka. But he has no security for the continuance of his\nreign, since Alberic may at any moment contrive to recover the ring,\nthe full power of which he can wield because he has forsworn love. Such\nforswearing is not possible to Wotan: love, though not his highest need,\nis a higher than gold: otherwise he would be no god. Besides, as we have\nseen, his power has been established in the world by and as a system\nof laws enforced by penalties. These he must consent to be bound by\nhimself; for a god who broke his own laws would betray the fact that\nlegality and conformity are not the highest rule of conduct--a discovery\nfatal to his supremacy as Pontiff and Lawgiver. Hence he may not wrest\nthe ring unlawfully from Fafnir, even if he could bring himself to\nforswear love.\n\nIn this insecurity he has hit on the idea of forming a heroic bodyguard.\nHe has trained his love children as war-maidens (Valkyries) whose duty\nit is to sweep through battle-fields and bear away to Valhalla the souls\nof the bravest who fall there. Thus reinforced by a host of warriors,\nhe has thoroughly indoctrinated them, Loki helping him as\ndialectician-in-chief, with the conventional system of law and duty,\nsupernatural religion and self-sacrificing idealism, which they believe\nto be the essence of his godhood, but which is really only the machinery\nof the love of necessary power which is his mortal weakness. This\nprocess secures their fanatical devotion to his system of government,\nbut he knows perfectly well that such systems, in spite of their moral\npretensions, serve selfish and ambitious tyrants better than benevolent\ndespots, and that, if once Alberic gets the ring back, he will easily\nout-Valhalla Valhalla, if not buy it over as a going concern. The only\nchance of permanent security, then, is the appearance in the world of a\nhero who, without any illicit prompting from Wotan, will destroy Alberic\nand wrest the ring from Fafnir. There will then, he believes, be no\nfurther cause for anxiety, since he does not yet conceive Heroism as\na force hostile to Godhead. In his longing for a rescuer, it does not\noccur to him that when the Hero comes, his first exploit must be to\nsweep the gods and their ordinances from the path of the heroic will.\n\nIndeed, he feels that in his own Godhead is the germ of such Heroism,\nand that from himself the Hero must spring. He takes to wandering,\nmostly in search of love, from Fricka and Valhalla. He seeks the First\nMother; and through her womb, eternally fertile, the inner true thought\nthat made him first a god is reborn as his daughter, uncorrupted by his\nambition, unfettered by his machinery of power and his alliances with\nFricka and Loki. This daughter, the Valkyrie Brynhild, is his true will,\nhis real self, (as he thinks): to her he may say what he must not say to\nanyone, since in speaking to her he but speaks to himself. \"Was Keinem\nin Worten unausgesprochen,\" he says to her, \"bleib es ewig: mit mir nur\nrath' ich, red' ich zu dir.\"\n\nBut from Brynhild no hero can spring until there is a man of Wotan's\nrace to breed with her. Wotan wanders further; and a mortal woman bears\nhim twins: a son and a daughter. He separates them by letting the girl\nfall into the hands of a forest tribe which in due time gives her as a\nwife to a fierce chief, one Hunding. With the son he himself leads the\nlife of a wolf, and teaches him the only power a god can teach, the\npower of doing without happiness. When he has given him this terrible\ntraining, he abandons him, and goes to the bridal feast of his daughter\nSieglinda and Hunding. In the blue cloak of the wanderer, wearing the\nbroad hat that flaps over the socket of his forfeited eye, he appears in\nHunding's house, the middle pillar of which is a mighty tree. Into that\ntree, without a word, he strikes a sword up to the hilt, so that only\nthe might of a hero can withdraw it. Then he goes out as silently as he\ncame, blind to the truth that no weapon from the armory of Godhead can\nserve the turn of the true Human Hero. Neither Hunding nor any of his\nguests can move the sword; and there it stays awaiting the destined\nhand. That is the history of the generations between The Rhine Gold and\nThe Valkyries.\n\nThe First Act\n\nThis time, as we sit looking expectantly at the curtain, we hear, not\nthe deep booming of the Rhine, but the patter of a forest downpour,\naccompanied by the mutter of a storm which soon gathers into a roar\nand culminates in crashing thunderbolts. As it passes off, the curtain\nrises; and there is no mistaking whose forest habitation we are in; for\nthe central pillar is a mighty tree, and the place fit for the dwelling\nof a fierce chief. The door opens: and an exhausted man reels in: an\nadept from the school of unhappiness. Sieglinda finds him lying on the\nhearth. He explains that he has been in a fight; that his weapons not\nbeing as strong as his arms, were broken; and that he had to fly. He\ndesires some drink and a moment's rest; then he will go; for he is an\nunlucky person, and does not want to bring his ill-luck on the woman\nwho is succoring him. But she, it appears, is also unhappy; and a strong\nsympathy springs up between them. When her husband arrives, he observes\nnot only this sympathy, but a resemblance between them, a gleam of the\nsnake in their eyes. They sit down to table; and the stranger tells them\nhis unlucky story. He is the son of Wotan, who is known to him only as\nWolfing, of the race of the Volsungs. The earliest thing he remembers is\nreturning from a hunt with his father to find their home destroyed, his\nmother murdered, and his twin-sister carried off. This was the work of\na tribe called the Neidings, upon whom he and Wolfing thenceforth waged\nimplacable war until the day when his father disappeared, leaving no\ntrace of himself but an empty wolfskin. The young Volsung was thus cast\nalone upon the world, finding most hands against him, and bringing no\ngood luck even to his friends. His latest exploit has been the slaying\nof certain brothers who were forcing their sister to wed against her\nwill. The result has been the slaughter of the woman by her brothers'\nclansmen, and his own narrow escape by flight.\n\nHis luck on this occasion is even worse than he supposes; for Hunding,\nby whose hearth he has taken refuge, is clansman to the slain brothers\nand is bound to avenge them. He tells the Volsung that in the morning,\nweapons or no weapons, he must fight for his life. Then he orders the\nwoman to bed, and follows her himself, taking his spear with him.\n\nThe unlucky stranger, left brooding by the hearth, has nothing to\nconsole himself with but an old promise of his father's that he shall\nfind a weapon to his hand when he most needs one. The last flicker of\nthe dying fire strikes on the golden hilt of the sword that sticks in\nthe tree; but he does not see it; and the embers sink into blackness.\nThen the woman returns. Hunding is safely asleep: she has drugged him.\nShe tells the story of the one-eyed man who appeared at her forced\nmarriage, and of the sword. She has always felt, she says, that her\nmiseries will end in the arms of the hero who shall succeed in drawing\nit forth. The stranger, diffident as he is about his luck, has no\nmisgivings as to his strength and destiny. He gives her his affection at\nonce, and abandons himself to the charm of the night and the season; for\nit is the beginning of Spring. They soon learn from their confidences\nthat she is his stolen twin-sister. He is transported to find that the\nheroic race of the Volsungs need neither perish nor be corrupted by a\nlower strain. Hailing the sword by the name of Nothung (or Needed), he\nplucks it from the tree as her bride-gift, and then, crying \"Both bride\nand sister be of thy brother; and blossom the blood of the Volsungs!\"\nclasps her as the mate the Spring has brought him.\n\nThe Second Act\n\nSo far, Wotan's plan seems prospering. In the mountains he calls his\nwar-maiden Brynhild, the child borne to him by the First Mother, and\nbids her see to it that Hunding shall fall in the approaching combat.\nBut he is reckoning without his consort, Fricka. What will she, the Law,\nsay to the lawless pair who have heaped incest on adultery? A hero may\nhave defied the law, and put his own will in its place; but can a god\nhold him guiltless, when the whole power of the gods can enforce itself\nonly by law? Fricka, shuddering with horror, outraged in every instinct,\ncomes clamoring for punishment. Wotan pleads the general necessity of\nencouraging heroism in order to keep up the Valhalla bodyguard; but his\nremonstrances only bring upon him torrents of reproaches for his own\nunfaithfulness to the law in roaming through the world and begetting\nwar-maidens, \"wolf cubs,\" and the like. He is hopelessly beaten in the\nargument. Fricka is absolutely right when she declares that the ending\nof the gods began when he brought this wolf-hero into the world;\nand now, to save their very existence, she pitilessly demands his\ndestruction. Wotan has no power to refuse: it is Fricka's mechanical\nforce, and not his thought, that really rules the world. He has to\nrecall Brynhild; take back his former instructions; and ordain that\nHunding shall slay the Volsung.\n\nBut now comes another difficulty. Brynhild is the inner thought and will\nof Godhead, the aspiration from the high life to the higher that is its\ndivine element, and only becomes separated from it when its resort to\nkingship and priestcraft for the sake of temporal power has made it\nfalse to itself. Hitherto, Brynhild, as Valkyrie or hero chooser, has\nobeyed Wotan implicitly, taking her work as the holiest and bravest in\nhis kingdom; and now he tells her what he could not tell Fricka--what\nindeed he could not tell to Brynhild, were she not, as she says, his\nown will--the whole story of Alberic and of that inspiration about the\nraising up of a hero. She thoroughly approves of the inspiration; but\nwhen the story ends in the assumption that she too must obey Fricka,\nand help Fricka's vassal, Hunding, to undo the great work and strike the\nhero down, she for the first time hesitates to accept his command. In\nhis fury and despair he overawes her by the most terrible threats of his\nanger; and she submits.\n\nThen comes the Volsung Siegmund, following his sister bride, who has\nfled into the mountains in a revulsion of horror at having allowed\nherself to bring her hero to shame. Whilst she is lying exhausted and\nsenseless in his arms, Brynhild appears to him and solemnly warns him\nthat he must presently leave the earth with her. He asks whither he must\nfollow her. To Valhalla, to take his place there among the heroes. He\nasks, shall he find his father there? Yes. Shall he find a wife there?\nYes: he will be waited on by beautiful wishmaidens. Shall he meet his\nsister there? No. Then, says Siegmund, I will not come with you.\n\nShe tries to make him understand that he cannot help himself. Being a\nhero, he will not be so persuaded: he has his father's sword, and does\nnot fear Hunding. But when she tells him that she comes from his father,\nand that the sword of a god will not avail in the hands of a hero, he\naccepts his fate, but will shape it with his own hand, both for himself\nand his sister, by slaying her, and then killing himself with the last\nstroke of the sword. And thereafter he will go to Hell, rather than to\nValhalla.\n\nHow now can Brynhild, being what she is, choose her side freely in a\nconflict between this hero and the vassal of Fricka? By instinct she\nat once throws Wotan's command to the winds, and bids Siegmund nerve\nhimself for the combat with Hunding, in which she pledges him the\nprotection of her shield. The horn of Hunding is soon heard; and\nSiegmund's spirits rise to fighting pitch at once. The two meet; and\nthe Valkyrie's shield is held before the hero. But when he delivers his\nsword-stroke at his foe, the weapon shivers on the spear of Wotan, who\nsuddenly appears between them; and the first of the race of heroes\nfalls with the weapon of the Law's vassal through his breast. Brynhild\nsnatches the fragments of the broken sword, and flies, carrying off the\nwoman with her on her war-horse; and Wotan, in terrible wrath,\nslays Hunding with a wave of his hand, and starts in pursuit of his\ndisobedient daughter.\n\nThe Third Act\n\nOn a rocky peak, four of the Valkyries are waiting for the rest. The\nabsent ones soon arrive, galloping through the air with slain heroes,\ngathered from the battle-field, hanging over their saddles. Only,\nBrynhild, who comes last, has for her spoil a live woman. When her eight\nsisters learn that she has defied Wotan, they dare not help her; and\nBrynhild has to rouse Sieglinda to make an effort to save herself, by\nreminding her that she bears in her the seed of a hero, and must\nface everything, endure anything, sooner than let that seed miscarry.\nSieglinda, in a transport of exaltation, takes the fragments of the\nsword and flies into the forest. Then Wotan comes; the sisters fly in\nterror at his command; and he is left alone with Brynhild.\n\nHere, then, we have the first of the inevitable moments which Wotan did\nnot foresee. Godhead has now established its dominion over the world by\na mighty Church, compelling obedience through its ally the Law, with its\nformidable State organization of force of arms and cunning of brain.\nIt has submitted to this alliance to keep the Plutonic power in\ncheck--built it up primarily for the sake of that soul in itself which\ncares only to make the highest better and the best higher; and now here\nis that very soul separated from it and working for the destruction\nof its indispensable ally, the lawgiving State. How is the rebel to be\ndisarmed? Slain it cannot be by Godhead, since it is still Godhead's own\nvery dearest soul. But hidden, stifled, silenced it must be; or it will\nwreck the State and leave the Church defenseless. Not until it passes\ncompletely away from Godhead, and is reborn as the soul of the hero,\ncan it work anything but the confusion and destruction of the existing\norder. How is the world to be protected against it in the meantime?\nClearly Loki's help is needed here: it is the Lie that must, on the\nhighest principles, hide the Truth. Let Loki surround this mountain top\nwith the appearance of a consuming fire; and who will dare penetrate to\nBrynhild? It is true that if any man will walk boldly into that fire,\nhe will discover it at once to be a lie, an illusion, a mirage through\nwhich he might carry a sack of gunpowder without being a penny the\nworse. Therefore let the fire seem so terrible that only the hero, when\nin the fulness of time he appears upon earth, will venture through it;\nand the problem is solved. Wotan, with a breaking heart, takes leave\nof Brynhild; throws her into a deep sleep; covers her with her long\nwarshield; summons Loki, who comes in the shape of a wall of fire\nsurrounding the mountain peak; and turns his back on Brynhild for ever.\n\nThe allegory here is happily not so glaringly obvious to the younger\ngenerations of our educated classes as it was forty years ago. In those\ndays, any child who expressed a doubt as to the absolute truth of the\nChurch's teaching, even to the extent of asking why Joshua told the\nsun to stand still instead of telling the earth to cease turning, or of\npointing out that a whale's throat would hardly have been large enough\nto swallow Jonah, was unhesitatingly told that if it harboured such\ndoubts it would spend all eternity after its death in horrible torments\nin a lake of burning brimstone. It is difficult to write or read\nthis nowadays without laughing; yet no doubt millions of ignorant and\ncredulous people are still teaching their children that. When Wagner\nhimself was a little child, the fact that hell was a fiction devised for\nthe intimidation and subjection of the masses, was a well-kept secret of\nthe thinking and governing classes. At that time the fires of Loki\nwere a very real terror to all except persons of exceptional force of\ncharacter and intrepidity of thought. Even thirty years after Wagner\nhad printed the verses of The Ring for private circulation, we find\nhim excusing himself from perfectly explicit denial of current\nsuperstitions, by reminding his readers that it would expose him to\nprosecution. In England, so many of our respectable voters are still\ngrovelling in a gloomy devil worship, of which the fires of Loki are\nthe main bulwark, that no Government has yet had the conscience or the\ncourage to repeal our monstrous laws against \"blasphemy.\"\n\n\n\n\nSIEGFRIED\n\nSieglinda, when she flies into the forest with the hero's son unborn in\nher womb, and the broken pieces of his sword in her hand, finds shelter\nin the smithy of a dwarf, where she brings forth her child and dies.\nThis dwarf is no other than Mimmy, the brother of Alberic, the same who\nmade for him the magic helmet. His aim in life is to gain possession of\nthe helmet, the ring, and the treasure, and through them to obtain that\nPlutonic mastery of the world under the beginnings of which he himself\nwrithed during Alberic's brief reign. Mimmy is a blinking, shambling,\nancient creature, too weak and timid to dream of taking arms himself to\ndespoil Fafnir, who still, transformed to a monstrous serpent, broods\non the gold in a hole in the rocks. Mimmy needs the help of a hero for\nthat; and he has craft enough to know that it is quite possible, and\nindeed much in the ordinary way of the world, for senile avarice and\ncraft to set youth and bravery to work to win empire for it. He knows\nthe pedigree of the child left on his hands, and nurses it to manhood\nwith great care.\n\nHis pains are too well rewarded for his comfort. The boy Siegfried,\nhaving no god to instruct him in the art of unhappiness, inherits none\nof his father's ill luck, and all his father's hardihood. The fear\nagainst which Siegmund set his face like flint, and the woe which he\nwore down, are unknown to the son. The father was faithful and grateful:\nthe son knows no law but his own humor; detests the ugly dwarf who has\nnursed him; chafes furiously under his claims for some return for\nhis tender care; and is, in short, a totally unmoral person, a born\nanarchist, the ideal of Bakoonin, an anticipation of the \"overman\" of\nNietzsche. He is enormously strong, full of life and fun, dangerous and\ndestructive to what he dislikes, and affectionate to what he likes; so\nthat it is fortunate that his likes and dislikes are sane and healthy.\nAltogether an inspiriting young forester, a son of the morning, in whom\nthe heroic race has come out into the sunshine from the clouds of his\ngrandfather's majestic entanglements with law, and the night of his\nfather's tragic struggle with it.\n\nThe First Act\n\nMimmy's smithy is a cave, in which he hides from the light like the\neyeless fish of the American caverns. Before the curtain rises the music\nalready tells us that we are groping in darkness. When it does rise\nMimmy is in difficulties. He is trying to make a sword for his nursling,\nwho is now big enough to take the field against Fafnir. Mimmy can make\nmischievous swords; but it is not with dwarf made weapons that heroic\nman will hew the way of his own will through religions and governments\nand plutocracies and all the other devices of the kingdom of the fears\nof the unheroic. As fast as Mimmy makes swords, Siegfried Bakoonin\nsmashes them, and then takes the poor old swordsmith by the scruff of\nthe neck and chastises him wrathfully. The particular day on which the\ncurtain rises begins with one of these trying domestic incidents.\nMimmy has just done his best with a new sword of surpassing excellence.\nSiegfried returns home in rare spirits with a wild bear, to the extreme\nterror of the wretched dwarf. When the bear is dismissed, the new sword\nis produced. It is promptly smashed, as usual, with, also, the usual\neffects on the temper of Siegfried, who is quite boundless in his\ncriticisms of the smith's boasted skill, and declares that he would\nsmash the sword's maker too if he were not too disgusting to be handled.\n\nMimmy falls back on his stock defence: a string of maudlin reminders of\nthe care with which he has nursed the little boy into manhood. Siegfried\nreplies candidly that the strangest thing about all this care is that\ninstead of making him grateful, it inspires him with a lively desire to\nwring the dwarf's neck. Only, he admits that he always comes back to his\nMimmy, though he loathes him more than any living thing in the forest.\nOn this admission the dwarf attempts to build a theory of filial\ninstinct. He explains that he is Siegfried's father, and that this is\nwhy Siegfried cannot do without him. But Siegfried has learned from his\nforest companions, the birds and foxes and wolves, that mothers as well\nas fathers go to the making of children. Mimmy, on the desperate ground\nthat man is neither bird nor fox, declares that he is Siegfried's father\nand mother both. He is promptly denounced as a filthy liar, because\nthe birds and foxes are exactly like their parents, whereas Siegfried,\nhaving often watched his own image in the water, can testify that he\nis no more like Mimmy than a toad is like a trout. Then, to place the\nconversation on a plane of entire frankness, he throttles Mimmy until he\nis speechless. When the dwarf recovers, he is so daunted that he tells\nSiegfried the truth about his birth, and for testimony thereof produces\nthe pieces of the sword that broke upon Wotan's spear. Siegfried\ninstantly orders him to repair the sword on pain of an unmerciful\nthrashing, and rushes off into the forest, rejoicing in the discovery\nthat he is no kin of Mimmy's, and need have no more to do with him when\nthe sword is mended.\n\nPoor Mimmy is now in a worse plight than ever; for he has long ago found\nthat the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will yield neither\nto his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there walks into his cave a\nWanderer, in a blue mantle, spear in hand, with one eye concealed by the\nbrim of his wide hat. Mimmy, not by nature hospitable, tries to drive\nhim away; but the Wanderer announces himself as a wise man, who can tell\nhis host, in emergency, what it most concerns him to know. Mimmy, taking\nthis offer in high dudgeon, because it implies that his visitor's wits\nare better than his own, offers to tell the wise one something that HE\ndoes not know: to wit, the way to the door. The imperturbable Wanderer's\nreply is to sit down and challenge the dwarf to a trial of wit. He\nwagers his head against Mimmy's that he will answer any three questions\nthe dwarf can put to him.\n\nNow here were Mimmy's opportunity, had he only the wit to ask what he\nwants to know, instead of pretending to know everything already. It\nis above all things needful to him at this moment to find out how that\nsword can be mended; and there has just dropped in upon him in his need\nthe one person who can tell him. In such circumstances a wise man would\nhasten to show to his visitor his three deepest ignorances, and ask him\nto dispel them. The dwarf, being a crafty fool, desiring only to detect\nignorance in his guest, asks him for information on the three points on\nwhich he is proudest of being thoroughly well instructed himself. His\nthree questions are, Who dwell under the earth? Who dwell on the earth?\nand Who dwell in the cloudy heights above? The Wanderer, in reply, tells\nhim of the dwarfs and of Alberic; of the earth, and the giants Fasolt\nand Fafnir; of the gods and of Wotan: himself, as Mimmy now recognizes\nwith awe.\n\nNext, it is Mimmy's turn to face three questions. What is that race,\ndearest to Wotan, against which Wotan has nevertheless done his worst?\nMimmy can answer that: he knows the Volsungs, the race of heroes born\nof Wotan's infidelities to Fricka, and can tell the Wanderer the whole\nstory of the twins and their son Siegfried. Wotan compliments him on his\nknowledge, and asks further with what sword Siegfried will slay Fafnir?\nMimmy can answer that too: he has the whole history of the sword at his\nfingers' ends. Wotan hails him as the knowingest of the knowing, and\nthen hurls at him the question he should himself have asked: Who\nwill mend the sword? Mimmy, his head forfeited, confesses with\nloud lamentations that he cannot answer. The Wanderer reads him an\nappropriate little lecture on the folly of being too clever to ask what\nhe wants to know, and informs him that a smith to whom fear is unknown\nwill mend Nothung. To this smith he leaves the forfeited head of his\nhost, and wanders off into the forest. Then Mimmy's nerves give way\ncompletely. He shakes like a man in delirium tremens, and has a horrible\nnightmare, in the supreme convulsion of which Siegfried, returning from\nthe forest, presently finds him.\n\nA curious and amusing conversation follows. Siegfried himself does not\nknow fear, and is impatient to acquire it as an accomplishment. Mimmy\nis all fear: the world for him is a phantasmagoria of terrors. It is not\nthat he is afraid of being eaten by bears in the forest, or of burning\nhis fingers in the forge fire. A lively objection to being destroyed\nor maimed does not make a man a coward: on the contrary, it is the\nbeginning of a brave man's wisdom. But in Mimmy, fear is not the effect\nof danger: it is natural quality of him which no security can allay.\nHe is like many a poor newspaper editor, who dares not print the truth,\nhowever simple, even when it is obvious to himself and all his readers.\nNot that anything unpleasant would happen to him if he did--not, indeed\nthat he could fail to become a distinguished and influential leader\nof opinion by fearlessly pursuing such a course, but solely because\nhe lives in a world of imaginary terrors, rooted in a modest and\ngentlemanly mistrust of his own strength and worth, and consequently of\nthe value of his opinion. Just so is Mimmy afraid of anything that can\ndo him any good, especially of the light and the fresh air. He is also\nconvinced that anybody who is not sufficiently steeped in fear to be\nconstantly on his guard, must perish immediately on his first sally\ninto the world. To preserve Siegfried for the enterprise to which he has\ndestined him he makes a grotesque attempt to teach him fear. He appeals\nto his experience of the terrors of the forest, of its dark places, of\nits threatening noises its stealthy ambushes, its sinister flickering\nlights its heart-tightening ecstasies of dread.\n\nAll this has no other effect than to fill Siegfried with wonder and\ncuriosity; for the forest is a place of delight for him. He is as eager\nto experience Mimmy's terrors as a schoolboy to feel what an electric\nshock is like. Then Mimmy has the happy idea of describing Fafnir to him\nas a likely person to give him an exemplary fright. Siegfried jumps at\nthe idea, and, since Mimmy cannot mend the sword for him, proposes to\nset to work then and there to mend it for himself. Mimmy shakes his\nhead, and bids him see now how his youthful laziness and frowardness\nhave found him out--how he would not learn the smith's craft from\nProfessor Mimmy, and therefore does not know how even to begin mending\nthe sword. Siegfried Bakoonin's retort is simple and crushing. He points\nout that the net result of Mimmy's academic skill is that he can neither\nmake a decent sword himself nor even set one to rights when it is\ndamaged. Reckless of the remonstrances of the scandalized professor, he\nseizes a file, and in a few moments utterly destroys the fragments of\nthe sword by rasping them into a heap of steel filings. Then he puts\nthe filings into a crucible; buries it in the coals; and sets to at the\nbellows with the shouting exultation of the anarchist who destroys only\nto clear the ground for creation. When the steel is melted he runs it\ninto a mould; and lo! a sword-blade in the rough. Mimmy, amazed at the\nsuccess of this violation of all the rules of his craft, hails Siegfried\nas the mightiest of smiths, professing himself barely worthy to be his\ncook and scullion; and forthwith proceeds to poison some soup for him so\nthat he may murder him safely when Fafnir is slain. Meanwhile Siegfried\nforges and tempers and hammers and rivets, uproariously singing the\nwhile as nonsensically as the Rhine maidens themselves. Finally he\nassails the anvil on which Mimmy's swords have been shattered, and\ncleaves it with a mighty stroke of the newly forged Nothung.\n\nThe Second Act\n\nIn the darkest hour before the dawn of that night, we find ourselves\nbefore the cave of Fafnir, and there we find Alberic, who can find\nnothing better to do with himself than to watch the haunt of the dragon,\nand eat his heart out in vain longing for the gold and the ring. The\nwretched Fafnir, once an honest giant, can only make himself terrible\nenough to keep his gold by remaining a venomous reptile. Why he should\nnot become an honest giant again and clear out of his cavern, leaving\nthe gold and the ring and the rest of it for anyone fool enough to take\nthem at such a price, is the first question that would occur to anyone\nexcept a civilized man, who would be too accustomed to that sort of\nmania to be at all surprised at it.\n\nTo Alberic in the night comes the Wanderer, whom the dwarf, recognizing\nhis despoiler of old, abuses as a shameless thief, taunting him with the\nhelpless way in which all his boasted power is tied up with the laws and\nbargains recorded on the heft of his spear, which, says Alberic truly,\nwould crumble like chaff in his hands if he dared use it for his own\nreal ends. Wotan, having already had to kill his own son with it, knows\nthat very well; but it troubles him no more; for he is now at last\nrising to abhorrence of his own artificial power, and looking to the\ncoming hero, not for its consolidation but its destruction. When Alberic\nbreaks out again with his still unquenched hope of one day destroying\nthe gods and ruling the world through the ring, Wotan is no longer\nshocked. He tells Alberic that Brother Mime approaches with a hero whom\nGodhead can neither help nor hinder. Alberic may try his luck against\nhim without disturbance from Valhalla. Perhaps, he suggests, if Alberic\nwarns Fafnir, and offers to deal with the hero for him, Fafnir, may give\nhim the ring. They accordingly wake up the dragon, who condescends\nto enter into bellowing conversation, but is proof against their\nproposition, strong in the magic of property. \"I have and hold,\" he\nsays: \"leave me to sleep.\" Wotan, with a wise laugh, turns to Alberic.\n\"That shot missed,\" he says: \"no use abusing me for it. And now let me\ntell you one thing. All things happen according to their nature; and you\ncan't alter them.\" And so he leaves him Alberic, raging with the sense\nthat his old enemy has been laughing at him, and yet prophetically\nconvinced that the last word will not be with the god, hides himself as\nthe day breaks, and his brother approaches with Siegfried.\n\nMimmy makes a final attempt to frighten Siegfried by discoursing of the\ndragon's terrible jaws, poisonous breath, corrosive spittle, and deadly,\nstinging tail. Siegfried is not interested in the tail: he wants to know\nwhether the dragon has a heart, being confident of his ability to stick\nNothung into it if it exists. Reassured on this point, he drives Mimmy\naway, and stretches himself under the trees, listening to the morning\nchatter of the birds. One of them has a great deal to say to him; but\nhe cannot understand it; and after vainly trying to carry on the\nconversation with a reed which he cuts, he takes to entertaining the\nbird with tunes on his horn, asking it to send him a loving mate such\nas all the other creatures of the forest have. His tunes wake up the\ndragon; and Siegfried makes merry over the grim mate the bird has\nsent him. Fafnir is highly scandalized by the irreverence of the young\nBakoonin. He loses his temper; fights; and is forthwith slain, to his\nown great astonishment.\n\nIn such conflicts one learns to interpret the messages of Nature a\nlittle. When Siegfried, stung by the dragon's vitriolic blood, pops his\nfinger into his mouth and tastes it, he understands what the bird is\nsaying to him, and, instructed by it concerning the treasures within his\nreach, goes into the cave to secure the gold, the ring and the wishing\ncap. Then Mimmy returns, and is confronted by Alberic. The two quarrel\nfuriously over the sharing of the booty they have not yet secured, until\nSiegfried comes from the cave with the ring and the helmet, not much\nimpressed by the heap of gold, and disappointed because he has not yet\nlearned to fear.\n\nHe has, however, learnt to read the thoughts of such a creature as poor\nMimmy, who, intending to overwhelm him with flattery and fondness,\nonly succeeds in making such a self-revelation of murderous envy\nthat Siegfried smites him with Nothung and slays him, to the keen\nsatisfaction of the hidden Alberic. Caring nothing for the gold, which\nhe leaves to the care of the slain; disappointed in his fancy for\nlearning fear; and longing for a mate, he casts himself wearily down,\nand again appeals to his friend the bird, who tells him of a woman\nsleeping on a mountain peak within a fortress of fire that only the\nfearless can penetrate. Siegfried is up in a moment with all the tumult\nof spring in his veins, and follows the flight of the bird as it pilots\nhim to the fiery mountain.\n\nThe Third Act\n\nTo the root of the mountain comes also the Wanderer, now nearing his\ndoom. He calls up the First Mother from the depths of the earth, and\nbegs counsel from her. She bids him confer with the Norns (the Fates).\nBut they are of no use to him: what he seeks is some foreknowledge of\nthe way of the Will in its perpetual strife with these helpless Fates\nwho can only spin the net of circumstance and environment round the feet\nof men. Why not, says Erda then, go to the daughter I bore you, and take\ncounsel with her? He has to explain how he has cut himself off from her,\nand set the fires of Loki between the world and her counsel. In that\ncase the First Mother cannot help him: such a separation is part of\nthe bewilderment that is ever the first outcome of her eternal work\nof thrusting the life energy of the world to higher and higher\norganization. She can show him no way of escape from the destruction he\nforesees. Then from the innermost of him breaks the confession that he\nrejoices in his doom, and now himself exults in passing away with all\nhis ordinances and alliances, with the spear-sceptre which he has only\nwielded on condition of slaying his dearest children with it, with the\nkingdom, the power and the glory which will never again boast themselves\nas \"world without end.\" And so he dismisses Erda to her sleep in the\nheart of the earth as the forest bird draws near, piloting the slain\nson's son to his goal.\n\nNow it is an excellent thing to triumph in the victory of the new order\nand the passing away of the old; but if you happen to be part of the\nold order yourself, you must none the less fight for your life. It seems\nhardly possible that the British army at the battle of Waterloo did not\ninclude at least one Englishman intelligent enough to hope, for the\nsake of his country and humanity, that Napoleon might defeat the allied\nsovereigns; but such an Englishman would kill a French cuirassier rather\nthan be killed by him just as energetically as the silliest soldier,\never encouraged by people who ought to know better, to call his\nignorance, ferocity and folly, patriotism and duty. Outworn life may\nhave become mere error; but it still claims the right to die a natural\ndeath, and will raise its hand against the millennium itself in\nself-defence if it tries to come by the short cut of murder. Wotan finds\nthis out when he comes face to face with Siegfried, who is brought to a\nstandstill at the foot of the mountain by the disappearance of the bird.\nMeeting the Wanderer there, he asks him the way to the mountain where\na woman sleeps surrounded by fire. The Wanderer questions him, and\nextracts his story from him, breaking into fatherly delight when\nSiegfried, describing the mending of the sword, remarks that all he knew\nabout the business was that the broken bits of Nothung would be of no\nuse to him unless he made a new sword out of them right over again from\nthe beginning. But the Wanderer's interest is by no means reciprocated\nby Siegfried. His majesty and elderly dignity are thrown away on the\nyoung anarchist, who, unwilling to waste time talking, bluntly bids\nhim either show him the way to the mountain, or else \"shut his muzzle.\"\nWotan is a little hurt. \"Patience, my lad,\" he says: \"if you were an old\nman I should treat you with respect.\" \"That would be a precious notion,\"\nsays Siegfried. \"All my life long I was bothered and hampered by an\nold man until I swept him out of my way. I will sweep you in the same\nfashion if you don't let me pass. Why do you wear such a big hat; and\nwhat has happened to one of your eyes? Was it knocked out by somebody\nwhose way you obstructed?\" To which Wotan replies allegorically that the\neye that is gone--the eye that his marriage with Fricka cost him--is now\nlooking at him out of Siegfried's head. At this, Siegfried gives up the\nWanderer as a lunatic, and renews his threats of personal violence. Then\nWotan throws off the mask of the Wanderer; uplifts the world-governing\nspear; and puts forth all his divine awe and grandeur as the guardian of\nthe mountain, round the crest of which the fires of Loki now break into\na red background for the majesty of the god. But all this is lost on\nSiegfried Bakoonin. \"Aha!\" he cries, as the spear is levelled against\nhis breast: \"I have found my father's foe\"; and the spear falls in two\npieces under the stroke of Nothung. \"Up then,\" says Wotan: \"I cannot\nwithhold you,\" and disappears forever from the eye of man. The fires\nroll down the mountain; but Siegfried goes at them as exultantly as\nhe went at the forging of the sword or the heart of the dragon, and\nshoulders his way through them, joyously sounding his horn to the\naccompaniment of their crackling and seething. And never a hair of his\nhead is singed. Those frightful flames which have scared mankind for\ncenturies from the Truth, have not heat enough in them to make a child\nshut its eyes. They are mere phantasmagoria, highly creditable to Loki's\nimaginative stage-management; but nothing ever has perished or will\nperish eternally in them except the Churches which have been so poor and\nfaithless as to trade for their power on the lies of a romancer.\n\n\n\n\nBACK TO OPERA AGAIN\n\nAnd now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories come to an\nend somewhere; and the hour of your release from these explanations is\nat hand. The rest of what you are going to see is opera, and nothing\nbut opera. Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened\nBrynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing a concerted\ncadenza; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet; and end with\na precipitous allegro a capella, driven headlong to its end by the\nimpetuous semiquaver triplets of the famous finales to the first act of\nDon Giovanni or the coda to the Leonore overture, with a specifically\ncontrapuntal theme, points d'orgue, and a high C for the soprano all\ncomplete.\n\nWhat is more, the work which follows, entitled Night Falls On The Gods,\nis a thorough grand opera. In it you shall see what you have so far\nmissed, the opera chorus in full parade on the stage, not presuming\nto interfere with the prima donna as she sings her death song over the\nfootlights. Nay, that chorus will have its own chance when it first\nappears, with a good roaring strain in C major, not, after all, so very\ndifferent from, or at all less absurd than the choruses of courtiers\nin La Favorita or \"Per te immenso giubilo\" in Lucia. The harmony is no\ndoubt a little developed, Wagner augmenting his fifths with a G sharp\nwhere Donizetti would have put his fingers in his ears and screamed for\nG natural. But it is an opera chorus all the same; and along with it\nwe have theatrical grandiosities that recall Meyerbeer and Verdi: pezzi\nd'insieme for all the principals in a row, vengeful conjurations for\ntrios of them, romantic death song for the tenor: in short, all manner\nof operatic conventions.\n\nNow it is probable that some of us will have been so talked by the more\nsuperstitious Bayreuth pilgrims into regarding Die Gotterdammerung as\nthe mighty climax to a mighty epic, more Wagnerian than all the other\nthree sections put together, as not to dare notice this startling\natavism, especially if we find the trio-conjurations more exhilarating\nthan the metaphysical discourses of Wotan in the three true music\ndramas of The Ring. There is, however, no real atavism involved.\nDie Gotterdammerung, though the last of The Ring dramas in order of\nperformance, was the first in order of conception and was indeed the\nroot from which all the others sprang.\n\nThe history of the matter is as follows. All Wagner's works prior to The\nRing are operas. The last of them, Lohengrin, is perhaps the best known\nof modern operas. As performed in its entirety at Bayreuth, it is even\nmore operatic than it appears at Covent Garden, because it happens that\nits most old-fashioned features, notably some of the big set concerted\npieces for principals and chorus (pezzi d'insieme as I have called\nthem above), are harder to perform than the more modern and\ncharacteristically Wagnerian sections, and for that reason were cut out\nin preparing the abbreviated fashionable version. Thus Lohengrin came\nupon the ordinary operatic stage as a more advanced departure from\ncurrent operatic models than its composer had made it. Still, it is\nunmistakably an opera, with chorus, concerted pieces, grand finales,\nand a heroine who, if she does not sing florid variations with\nflute obbligato, is none the less a very perceptible prima donna. In\neverything but musical technique the change from Lohengrin to The Rhine\nGold is quite revolutionary.\n\nThe explanation is that Night Falls On The Gods came in between them,\nalthough its music was not finished until twenty years after that of\nThe Rhine Gold, and thus belongs to a later and more masterful phase of\nWagner's harmonic style. It first came into Wagner's head as an opera\nto be entitled Siegfried's Death, founded on the old Niblung Sagas, which\noffered to Wagner the same material for an effective theatrical tragedy\nas they did to Ibsen. Ibsen's Vikings in Helgeland is, in kind, what\nSiegfried's Death was originally intended to be: that is, a heroic piece\nfor the theatre, without the metaphysical or allegorical complications\nof The Ring. Indeed, the ultimate catastrophe of the Saga cannot by any\nperversion of ingenuity be adapted to the perfectly clear allegorical\ndesign of The Rhine Gold, The Valkyries, and Siegfried.\n\n\n\n\nSIEGFRIED AS PROTESTANT\n\nThe philosophically fertile element in the original project of\nSiegfried's Death was the conception of Siegfried himself as a type of\nthe healthy man raised to perfect confidence in his own impulses by\nan intense and joyous vitality which is above fear, sickliness of\nconscience, malice, and the makeshifts and moral crutches of law and\norder which accompany them. Such a character appears extraordinarily\nfascinating and exhilarating to our guilty and conscience-ridden\ngenerations, however little they may understand him. The world has\nalways delighted in the man who is delivered from conscience. From Punch\nand Don Juan down to Robert Macaire, Jeremy Diddler and the pantomime\nclown, he has always drawn large audiences; but hitherto he has been\ndecorously given to the devil at the end. Indeed eternal punishment is\nsometimes deemed too high a compliment to his nature. When the late Lord\nLytton, in his Strange Story, introduced a character personifying the\njoyousness of intense vitality, he felt bound to deny him the immortal\nsoul which was at that time conceded even to the humblest characters in\nfiction, and to accept mischievousness, cruelty, and utter incapacity\nfor sympathy as the inevitable consequence of his magnificent bodily and\nmental health.\n\nIn short, though men felt all the charm of abounding life and\nabandonment to its impulses, they dared not, in their deep\nself-mistrust, conceive it otherwise than as a force making for\nevil--one which must lead to universal ruin unless checked and literally\nmortified by self-renunciation in obedience to superhuman guidance, or\nat least to some reasoned system of morals. When it became apparent to\nthe cleverest of them that no such superhuman guidance existed, and\nthat their secularist systems had all the fictitiousness of \"revelation\"\nwithout its poetry, there was no escaping the conclusion that all the\ngood that man had done must be put down to his arbitrary will as well as\nall the evil he had done; and it was also obvious that if progress were\na reality, his beneficent impulses must be gaining on his destructive\nones. It was under the influence of these ideas that we began to hear\nabout the joy of life where we had formerly heard about the grace of God\nor the Age of Reason, and that the boldest spirits began to raise the\nquestion whether churches and laws and the like were not doing a great\ndeal more harm than good by their action in limiting the freedom of the\nhuman will. Four hundred years ago, when belief in God and in revelation\nwas general throughout Europe, a similar wave of thought led the\nstrongest-hearted peoples to affirm that every man's private judgment\nwas a more trustworthy interpreter of God and revelation than the\nChurch. This was called Protestantism; and though the Protestants were\nnot strong enough for their creed, and soon set up a Church of their\nown, yet the movement, on the whole, has justified the direction it\ntook. Nowadays the supernatural element in Protestantism has perished;\nand if every man's private judgment is still to be justified as the most\ntrustworthy interpreter of the will of Humanity (which is not a\nmore extreme proposition than the old one about the will of God)\nProtestantism must take a fresh step in advance, and become Anarchism.\nWhich it has accordingly done, Anarchism being one of the notable new\ncreeds of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.\n\nThe weak place which experience finds out in the Anarchist theory is\nits reliance on the progress already achieved by \"Man.\" There is no such\nthing as Man in the world: what we have to deal with is a multitude of\nmen, some of them great rascals, some of them great statesmen, others\nboth, with a vast majority capable of managing their personal affairs,\nbut not of comprehending social organization, or grappling with the\nproblems created by their association in enormous numbers. If \"Man\"\nmeans this majority, then \"Man\" has made no progress: he has, on\nthe contrary, resisted it. He will not even pay the cost of existing\ninstitutions: the requisite money has to be filched from him by\n\"indirect taxation.\" Such people, like Wagner's giants, must be\ngoverned by laws; and their assent to such government must be secured\nby deliberately filling them with prejudices and practicing on their\nimaginations by pageantry and artificial eminences and dignities.\nThe government is of course established by the few who are capable of\ngovernment, though its mechanism once complete, it may be, and generally\nis, carried on unintelligently by people who are incapable of it the\ncapable people repairing it from time to time when it gets too far\nbehind the continuous advance or decay of civilization. All these\ncapable people are thus in the position of Wotan, forced to maintain as\nsacred, and themselves submit to, laws which they privately know to be\nobsolescent makeshifts, and to affect the deepest veneration for creeds\nand ideals which they ridicule among themselves with cynical scepticism.\nNo individual Siegfried can rescue them from this bondage and hypocrisy;\nin fact, the individual Siegfried has come often enough, only to find\nhimself confronted with the alternative of governing those who are not\nSiegfrieds or risking destruction at their hands. And this dilemma will\npersist until Wotan's inspiration comes to our governors, and they see\nthat their business is not the devising of laws and institutions to prop\nup the weaknesses of mobs and secure the survival of the unfittest, but\nthe breeding of men whose wills and intelligences may be depended on to\nproduce spontaneously the social well-being our clumsy laws now aim at\nand miss. The majority of men at present in Europe have no business\nto be alive; and no serious progress will be made until we address\nourselves earnestly and scientifically to the task of producing\ntrustworthy human material for society. In short, it is necessary to\nbreed a race of men in whom the life-giving impulses predominate, before\nthe New Protestantism becomes politically practicable. [*]\n\n     * The necessity for breeding the governing class from a\n     selected stock has always been recognized by Aristocrats,\n     however erroneous their methods of selection. We have\n     changed our system from Aristocracy to Democracy without\n     considering that we were at the same time changing, as\n     regards our governing class, from Selection to Promiscuity.\n     Those who have taken a practical part in modern politics\n     best know how farcical the result is.\n\n\nThe most inevitable dramatic conception, then, of the nineteenth\ncentury, is that of a perfectly naive hero upsetting religion, law and\norder in all directions, and establishing in their place the unfettered\naction of Humanity doing exactly what it likes, and producing order\ninstead of confusion thereby because it likes to do what is necessary\nfor the good of the race. This conception, already incipient in Adam\nSmith's Wealth of Nations, was certain at last to reach some great\nartist, and be embodied by him in a masterpiece. It was also certain\nthat if that master happened to be a German, he should take delight\nin describing his hero as the Freewiller of Necessity, thereby beyond\nmeasure exasperating Englishmen with a congenital incapacity for\nmetaphysics.\n\n\n\n\nPANACEA QUACKERY, OTHERWISE IDEALISM\n\nUnfortunately, human enlightenment does not progress by nicer and nicer\nadjustments, but by violent corrective reactions which invariably send\nus clean over our saddle and would bring us to the ground on the other\nside if the next reaction did not send us back again with equally\nexcessive zeal. Ecclesiasticism and Constitutionalism send us one way,\nProtestantism and Anarchism the other; Order rescues us from confusion\nand lands us in Tyranny; Liberty then saves the situation and is\npresently found to be as great a nuisance as Despotism. A scientifically\nbalanced application of these forces, theoretically possible, is\npractically incompatible with human passion. Besides, we have the same\nweakness in morals as in medicine: we cannot be cured of running after\npanaceas, or, as they are called in the sphere of morals, ideals. One\ngeneration sets up duty, renunciation, self-sacrifice as a panacea. The\nnext generation, especially the women, wake up at the age of forty or\nthereabouts to the fact that their lives have been wasted in the worship\nof this ideal, and, what is still more aggravating, that the elders who\nimposed it on them did so in a fit of satiety with their own experiments\nin the other direction. Then that defrauded generation foams at the\nmouth at the very mention of duty, and sets up the alternative panacea\nof love, their deprivation of which seems to them to have been the most\ncruel and mischievous feature of their slavery to duty. It is useless to\nwarn them that this reaction, if prescribed as a panacea, will prove as\ngreat a failure as all the other reactions have done; for they do not\nrecognize its identity with any reaction that ever occurred before.\nTake for instance the hackneyed historic example of the austerity of\nthe Commonwealth being followed by the licence of the Restoration.\nYou cannot persuade any moral enthusiast to accept this as a pure\noscillation from action to reaction. If he is a Puritan he looks upon\nthe Restoration as a national disaster: if he is an artist he regards it\nas the salvation of the country from gloom, devil worship and starvation\nof the affections. The Puritan is ready to try the Commonwealth again\nwith a few modern improvements: the Amateur is equally ready to try the\nRestoration with modern enlightenments. And so for the present we must\nbe content to proceed by reactions, hoping that each will establish some\npermanently practical and beneficial reform or moral habit that will\nsurvive the correction of its excesses by the next reaction.\n\n\n\n\nDRAMATIC ORIGIN OF WOTAN\n\nWe can now see how a single drama in which Wotan does not appear, and of\nwhich Siegfried is the hero, expanded itself into a great fourfold\ndrama of which Wotan is the hero. You cannot dramatize a reaction by\npersonifying the reacting force only, any more than Archimedes could\nlift the world without a fulcrum for his lever. You must also personify\nthe established power against which the new force is reacting; and\nin the conflict between them you get your drama, conflict being the\nessential ingredient in all drama. Siegfried, as the hero of Die\nGotterdammerung, is only the primo tenore robusto of an opera book,\ndeferring his death, after he has been stabbed in the last act, to\nsing rapturous love strains to the heroine exactly like Edgardo in\nDonizetti's Lucia. In order to make him intelligible in the wider\nsignificance which his joyous, fearless, conscienceless heroism soon\nassumed in Wagner's imagination, it was necessary to provide him with a\nmuch vaster dramatic antagonist than the operatic villain Hagen. Hence\nWagner had to create Wotan as the anvil for Siegfried's hammer; and\nsince there was no room for Wotan in the original opera book, Wagner\nhad to work back to a preliminary drama reaching primarily to the very\nbeginnings of human society. And since, on this world-embracing scale,\nit was clear that Siegfried must come into conflict with many baser\nand stupider forces than those lofty ones of supernatural religion and\npolitical constitutionalism typified by Wotan and his wife Fricka, these\nminor antagonists had to be dramatized also in the persons of Alberic,\nMime, Fafnir, Loki, and the rest. None of these appear in Night Falls On\nThe Gods save Alberic, whose weird dream-colloquy with Hagen, effective\nas it is, is as purely theatrical as the scene of the Ghost in Hamlet,\nor the statue in Don Giovanni. Cut the conference of the Norns and the\nvisit of Valtrauta to Brynhild out of Night Falls On The Gods, and the\ndrama remains coherent and complete without them. Retain them, and the\nplay becomes connected by conversational references with the three music\ndramas; but the connection establishes no philosophic coherence, no\nreal identity between the operatic Brynhild of the Gibichung episode\n(presently to be related) and the daughter of Wotan and the First\nMother.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOVE PANACEA\n\nWe shall now find that at the point where The Ring changes from\nmusic drama into opera, it also ceases to be philosophic, and becomes\ndidactic. The philosophic part is a dramatic symbol of the world as\nWagner observed it. In the didactic part the philosophy degenerates into\nthe prescription of a romantic nostrum for all human ills. Wagner, only\nmortal after all, succumbed to the panacea mania when his philosophy was\nexhausted, like any of the rest of us.\n\nThe panacea is by no means an original one. Wagner was anticipated in\nthe year 1819 by a young country gentleman from Sussex named Shelley, in\na work of extraordinary artistic power and splendor. Prometheus Unbound\nis an English attempt at a Ring; and when it is taken into account that\nthe author was only 27 whereas Wagner was 40 when he completed the poem\nof The Ring, our vulgar patriotism may find an envious satisfaction in\ninsisting upon the comparison. Both works set forth the same conflict\nbetween humanity and its gods and governments, issuing in the redemption\nof man from their tyranny by the growth of his will into perfect\nstrength and self-confidence; and both finish by a lapse into\npanacea-mongering didacticism by the holding up of Love as the remedy\nfor all evils and the solvent of all social difficulties.\n\nThe differences between Prometheus Unbound and The Ring are as\ninteresting as the likenesses. Shelley, caught in the pugnacity of his\nyouth and the first impetuosity of his prodigious artistic power by\nthe first fierce attack of the New Reformation, gave no quarter to\nthe antagonist of his hero. His Wotan, whom he calls Jupiter, is the\nalmighty fiend into whom the Englishman's God had degenerated during two\ncenturies of ignorant Bible worship and shameless commercialism. He is\nAlberic, Fafnir Loki and the ambitious side of Wotan all rolled into\none melodramatic demon who is finally torn from his throne and hurled\nshrieking into the abyss by a spirit representing that conception\nof Eternal Law which has been replaced since by the conception of\nEvolution. Wagner, an older, more experienced man than the Shelley of\n1819, understood Wotan and pardoned him, separating him tenderly from\nall the compromising alliances to which Shelley fiercely held him;\nmaking the truth and heroism which overthrow him the children of his\ninmost heart; and representing him as finally acquiescing in and working\nfor his own supersession and annihilation. Shelley, in his later works,\nis seen progressing towards the same tolerance, justice, and humility\nof spirit, as he advanced towards the middle age he never reached. But\nthere is no progress from Shelley to Wagner as regards the panacea,\nexcept that in Wagner there is a certain shadow of night and death come\non it: nay, even a clear opinion that the supreme good of love is that\nit so completely satisfies the desire for life, that after it the Will\nto Live ceases to trouble us, and we are at last content to achieve the\nhighest happiness of death.\n\nThis reduction of the panacea to absurdity was not forced upon Shelley,\nbecause the love which acts as a universal solvent in his Prometheus\nUnbound is a sentiment of affectionate benevolence which has nothing to\ndo with sexual passion. It might, and in fact does exist in the absence\nof any sexual interest whatever. The words mercy and kindness connote it\nless ambiguously than the word love. But Wagner sought always for some\npoint of contact between his ideas and the physical senses, so that\npeople might not only think or imagine them in the eighteenth century\nfashion, but see them on the stage, hear them from the orchestra, and\nfeel them through the infection of passionate emotion. Dr. Johnson\nkicking the stone to confute Berkeley is not more bent on common-sense\nconcreteness than Wagner: on all occasions he insists on the need\nfor sensuous apprehension to give reality to abstract comprehension,\nmaintaining, in fact, that reality has no other meaning. Now he could\napply this process to poetic love only by following it back to its\nalleged origin in sexual passion, the emotional phenomena of which he\nhas expressed in music with a frankness and forcible naturalism which\nwould possibly have scandalized Shelley. The love duet in the first act\nof The Valkyries is brought to a point at which the conventions of our\nsociety demand the precipitate fall of the curtain; whilst the prelude\nto Tristan and Isolde is such an astonishingly intense and faithful\ntranslation into music of the emotions which accompany the union of a\npair of lovers, that it is questionable whether the great popularity of\nthis piece at our orchestral concerts really means that our audiences\nare entirely catholic in their respect for life in all its beneficently\ncreative functions, or whether they simply enjoy the music without\nunderstanding it.\n\nBut however offensive and inhuman may be the superstition which brands\nsuch exaltations of natural passion as shameful and indecorous, there is\nat least as much common sense in disparaging love as in setting it up as\na panacea. Even the mercy and loving-kindness of Shelley do not hold good\nas a universal law of conduct: Shelley himself makes extremely short\nwork of Jupiter, just as Siegfried does of Fafnir, Mime, and Wotan; and\nthe fact that Prometheus is saved from doing the destructive part of\nhis work by the intervention of that very nebulous personification of\nEternity called Demogorgon, does not in the least save the situation,\nbecause, flatly, there is no such person as Demogorgon, and if\nPrometheus does not pull down Jupiter himself, no one else will. It\nwould be exasperating, if it were not so funny, to see these poets\nleading their heroes through blood and destruction to the conclusion\nthat, as Browning's David puts it (David of all people!), \"All's Love;\nyet all's Law.\"\n\nCertainly it is clear enough that such love as that implied by\nSiegfried's first taste of fear as he cuts through the mailed coat of\nthe sleeping figure on the mountain, and discovers that it is a woman;\nby her fierce revolt against being touched by him when his terror gives\nway to ardor; by his manly transports of victory; and by the womanly\nmixture of rapture and horror with which she abandons herself to the\npassion which has seized on them both, is an experience which it is much\nbetter, like the vast majority of us, never to have passed through, than\nto allow it to play more than a recreative holiday part in our lives. It\ndid not play a very large part in Wagner's own laborious life, and does\nnot occupy more than two scenes of The Ring. Tristan and Isolde, wholly\ndevoted to it, is a poem of destruction and death. The Mastersingers,\na work full of health, fun and happiness, contains not a single bar\nof love music that can be described as passionate: the hero of it is\na widower who cobbles shoes, writes verses, and contents himself with\nlooking on at the sweetheartings of his customers. Parsifal makes an end\nof it altogether. The truth is that the love panacea in Night Falls On\nThe Gods and in the last act of Siegfried is a survival of the first\ncrude operatic conception of the story, modified by an anticipation of\nWagner's later, though not latest, conception of love as the fulfiller\nof our Will to Live and consequently our reconciler to night and death.\n\n\n\n\nNOT LOVE, BUT LIFE\n\nThe only faith which any reasonable disciple can gain from The Ring is\nnot in love, but in life itself as a tireless power which is continually\ndriving onward and upward--not, please observe, being beckoned or drawn\nby Das Ewig Weibliche or any other external sentimentality, but growing\nfrom within, by its own inexplicable energy, into ever higher and\nhigher forms of organization, the strengths and the needs of which are\ncontinually superseding the institutions which were made to fit our\nformer requirements. When your Bakoonins call out for the demolition of\nall these venerable institutions, there is no need to fly into a panic\nand lock them up in prison whilst your parliament is bit by bit doing\nexactly what they advised you to do. When your Siegfrieds melt down the\nold weapons into new ones, and with disrespectful words chop in twain\nthe antiquated constable's staves in the hands of their elders, the end\nof the world is no nearer than it was before. If human nature, which\nis the highest organization of life reached on this planet, is really\ndegenerating, then human society will decay; and no panic-begotten penal\nmeasures can possibly save it: we must, like Prometheus, set to work to\nmake new men instead of vainly torturing old ones. On the other hand, if\nthe energy of life is still carrying human nature to higher and higher\nlevels, then the more young people shock their elders and deride and\ndiscard their pet institutions the better for the hopes of the world,\nsince the apparent growth of anarchy is only the measure of the rate of\nimprovement. History, as far as we are capable of history (which is\nnot saying much as yet), shows that all changes from crudity of social\norganization to complexity, and from mechanical agencies in government\nto living ones, seem anarchic at first sight. No doubt it is natural\nto a snail to think that any evolution which threatens to do away with\nshells will result in general death from exposure. Nevertheless, the\nmost elaborately housed beings today are born not only without houses on\ntheir backs but without even fur or feathers to clothe them.\n\n\n\n\nANARCHISM NO PANACEA\n\nOne word of warning to those who may find themselves attracted by\nSiegfried's Anarchism, or, if they prefer a term with more respectable\nassociations, his neo-Protestantism. Anarchism, as a panacea, is just as\nhopeless as any other panacea, and will still be so even if we breed\na race of perfectly benevolent men. It is true that in the sphere of\nthought, Anarchism is an inevitable condition of progressive\nevolution. A nation without Freethinkers--that is, without intellectual\nAnarchists--will share the fate of China. It is also true that our\ncriminal law, based on a conception of crime and punishment which is\nnothing but our vindictiveness and cruelty in a virtuous disguise, is\nan unmitigated and abominable nuisance, bound to be beaten out of\nus finally by the mere weight of our experience of its evil and\nuselessness. But it will not be replaced by anarchy. Applied to the\nindustrial or political machinery of modern society, anarchy must always\nreduce itself speedily to absurdity. Even the modified form of anarchy\non which modern civilization is based: that is, the abandonment\nof industry, in the name of individual liberty, to the upshot of\ncompetition for personal gain between private capitalists, is a\ndisastrous failure, and is, by the mere necessities of the case, giving\nway to ordered Socialism. For the economic rationale of this, I must\nrefer disciples of Siegfried to a tract from my hand published by the\nFabian Society and entitled The Impossibilities of Anarchism, which\nexplains why, owing to the physical constitution of our globe, society\ncannot effectively organize the production of its food, clothes and\nhousing, nor distribute them fairly and economically on any anarchic\nplan: nay, that without concerting our social action to a much higher\ndegree than we do at present we can never get rid of the wasteful and\niniquitous welter of a little riches and a deal of poverty which current\npolitical humbug calls our prosperity and civilization. Liberty is an\nexcellent thing; but it cannot begin until society has paid its daily\ndebt to Nature by first earning its living. There is no liberty before\nthat except the liberty to live at somebody else's expense, a liberty\nmuch sought after nowadays, since it is the criterion of gentility, but\nnot wholesome from the point of view of the common weal.\n\n\n\n\nSIEGFRIED CONCLUDED\n\nIn returning now to the adventures of Siegfried there is little more\nto be described except the finale of an opera. Siegfried, having passed\nunharmed through the fire, wakes Brynhild and goes through all the\nfancies and ecstasies of love at first sight in a duet which ends with\nan apostrophe to \"leuchtende Liebe, lachender Tod!\", which has been\nromantically translated into \"Love that illumines, laughing at Death,\"\nwhereas it really identifies enlightening love and laughing death as\ninvolving each other so closely as to be usually one and the same thing.\n\n\n\n\nNIGHT FALLS ON THE GODS\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nDie Gotterdammerung begins with an elaborate prologue. The three Norns\nsit in the night on Brynhild's mountain top spinning their thread of\ndestiny, and telling the story of Wotan's sacrifice of his eye, and\nof his breaking off a bough from the World Ash to make a heft for his\nspear, also how the tree withered after suffering that violence. They\nhave also some fresher news to discuss. Wotan, on the breaking of his\nspear by Siegfried, has called all his heroes to cut down the withered\nWorld Ash and stack its faggots in a mighty pyre about Valhalla. Then,\nwith his broken spear in his hand, he has seated himself in state in\nthe great hall, with the Gods and Heroes assembled about him as if\nin council, solemnly waiting for the end. All this belongs to the old\nlegendary materials with which Wagner began The Ring.\n\nThe tale is broken by the thread snapping in the hands of the third\nNorn; for the hour has arrived when man has taken his destiny in his\nown hands to shape it for himself, and no longer bows to circumstance,\nenvironment, necessity (which he now freely wills), and all the rest of\nthe inevitables. So the Norns recognize that the world has no further\nuse for them, and sink into the earth to return to the First Mother.\nThen the day dawns; and Siegfried and Brynhild come, and have another\nduet. He gives her his ring; and she gives him her horse. Away then he\ngoes in search of more adventures; and she watches him from her crag\nuntil he disappears. The curtain falls; but we can still hear the\ntrolling of his horn, and the merry clatter of his horse's shoes\ntrotting gaily down the valley. The sound is lost in the grander rhythm\nof the Rhine as he reaches its banks. We hear again an echo of the\nlament of the Rhine maidens for the ravished gold; and then, finally, a\nnew strain, which does not surge like the mighty flood of the river, but\nhas an unmistakable tramp of hardy men and a strong land flavor about\nit. And on this the opera curtain at last goes up--for please remember\nthat all that has gone before is only the overture.\n\nThe First Act\n\nWe now understand the new tramping strain. We are in the Rhineside hall\nof the Gibichungs, in the presence of King Gunther, his sister Gutrune,\nand Gunther's grim half brother Hagen, the villain of the piece. Gunther\nis a fool, and has for Hagen's intelligence the respect a fool always\nhas for the brains of a scoundrel. Feebly fishing for compliments, he\nappeals to Hagen to pronounce him a fine fellow and a glory to the\nrace of Gibich. Hagen declares that it is impossible to contemplate\nhim without envy, but thinks it a pity that he has not yet found a\nwife glorious enough for him. Gunther doubts whether so extraordinary\na person can possibly exist. Hagen then tells him of Brynhild and her\nrampart of fire; also of Siegfried. Gunther takes this rather in bad\npart, since not only is he afraid of the fire, but Siegfried, according\nto Hagen, is not, and will therefore achieve this desirable match\nhimself. But Hagen points out that since Siegfried is riding about\nin quest of adventures, he will certainly pay an early visit to the\nrenowned chief of the Gibichungs. They can then give him a philtre which\nwill make him fall in love with Gutrune and forget every other woman he\nhas yet seen.\n\nGunther is transported with admiration of Hagen's cunning when he takes\nin this plan; and he has hardly assented to it when Siegfried, with\noperatic opportuneness, drops in just as Hagen expected, and is duly\ndrugged into the heartiest love for Gutrune and total oblivion of\nBrynhild and his own past. When Gunther declares his longing for the\nbride who lies inaccessible within a palisade of flame, Siegfried at\nonce offers to undertake the adventure for him. Hagen then explains\nto both of them that Siegfried can, after braving the fire, appear to\nBrynhild in the semblance of Gunther through the magic of the wishing\ncap (or Tarnhelm, as it is called throughout The Ring), the use of which\nSiegfried now learns for the first time. It is of course part of the\nbargain that Gunther shall give his sister to Siegfried in marriage.\nOn that they swear blood-brotherhood; and at this opportunity the old\noperatic leaven breaks out amusingly in Wagner. With tremendous exordium\nof brass, the tenor and baritone go at it with a will, showing off\nthe power of their voices, following each other in canonic imitation,\nsinging together in thirds and sixths, and finishing with a lurid\nunison, quite in the manner of Ruy Gomez and Ernani, or Othello and\nIago. Then without further ado Siegfried departs on his expedition,\ntaking Gunther with him to the foot of the mountain, and leaving Hagen\nto guard the hall and sing a very fine solo which has often figured in\nthe programs of the Richter concerts, explaining that his interest in\nthe affair is that Siegfried will bring back the Ring, and that he,\nHagen, will presently contrive to possess himself of that Ring and\nbecome Plutonic master of the world.\n\nAnd now it will be asked how does Hagen know all about the Plutonic\nempire; and why was he able to tell Gunther about Brynhild and\nSiegfried, and to explain to Siegfried the trick of the Tarnhelm. The\nexplanation is that though Hagen's mother was the mother of Gunther, his\nfather was not the illustrious Gibich, but no less a person than our old\nfriend Alberic, who, like Wotan, has begotten a son to do for him what\nhe cannot do for himself.\n\nIn the above incidents, those gentle moralizers who find the serious\nphilosophy of the music dramas too terrifying for them, may allegorize\npleasingly on the philtre as the maddening chalice of passion which,\nonce tasted, causes the respectable man to forget his lawfully wedded\nwife and plunge into adventures which eventually lead him headlong to\ndestruction.\n\nWe now come upon a last relic of the tragedy of Wotan. Returning\nto Brynhild's mountain, we find her visited by her sister Valkyrie\nValtrauta, who has witnessed Wotan's solemn preparations with terror.\nShe repeats to Brynhild the account already given by the Norns. Clinging\nin anguish to Wotan's knees, she has heard him mutter that were the ring\nreturned to the daughters of the deep Rhine, both Gods and world would\nbe redeemed from that stage curse off Alberic's in The Rhine Gold. On\nthis she has rushed on her warhorse through the air to beg Brynhild to\ngive the Rhine back its ring. But this is asking Woman to give up love\nfor the sake of Church and State. She declares that she will see them\nboth perish first; and Valtrauta returns to Valhalla in despair. Whilst\nBrynhild is watching the course of the black thundercloud that marks her\nsister's flight, the fires of Loki again flame high round the mountain;\nand the horn of Siegfried is heard as he makes his way through them.\nBut the man who now appears wears the Tarnhelm: his voice is a strange\nvoice: his figure is the unknown one of the king of the Gibichungs. He\ntears the ring from her finger, and, claiming her as his wife, drives\nher into the cave without pity for her agony of horror, and sets Nothung\nbetween them in token of his loyalty to the friend he is impersonating.\nNo explanation of this highway robbery of the ring is offered. Clearly,\nthis Siegfried is not the Siegfried of the previous drama.\n\nThe Second Act\n\nIn the second act we return to the hall of Gibich, where Hagen, in the\nlast hours of that night, still sits, his spear in his hand, and his\nshield beside him. At his knees crouches a dwarfish spectre, his father\nAlberic, still full of his old grievances against Wotan, and urging his\nson in his dreams to win back the ring for him. This Hagen swears to\ndo; and as the apparition of his father vanishes, the sun rises and\nSiegfried suddenly comes from the river bank tucking into his belt the\nTarnhelm, which has transported him from the mountain like the enchanted\ncarpet of the Arabian tales. He describes his adventures to Gutrune\nuntil Gunther's boat is seen approaching, when Hagen seizes a cowhorn\nand calls the tribesmen to welcome their chief and his bride. It is most\nexhilarating, this colloquy with the startled and hastily armed clan,\nending with a thundering chorus, the drums marking the time with mighty\npulses from dominant to tonic, much as Rossini would have made them do\nif he had been a pupil of Beethoven's.\n\nA terrible scene follows. Gunther leads his captive bride straight into\nthe presence of Siegfried, whom she claims as her husband by the ring,\nwhich she is astonished to see on his finger: Gunther, as she supposes,\nhaving torn it from her the night before. Turning on Gunther, she says\n\"Since you took that ring from me, and married me with it, tell him of\nyour right to it; and make him give it back to you.\" Gunther stammers,\n\"The ring! I gave him no ring--er--do you know him?\" The rejoinder is\nobvious. \"Then where are you hiding the ring that you had from me?\"\nGunther's confusion enlightens her; and she calls Siegfried trickster\nand thief to his face. In vain he declares that he got the ring from no\nwoman, but from a dragon whom he slew; for he is manifestly puzzled;\nand she, seizing her opportunity, accuses him before the clan of having\nplayed Gunther false with her.\n\nHereupon we have another grandiose operatic oath, Siegfried attesting\nhis innocence on Hagen's spear, and Brynhild rushing to the footlights\nand thrusting him aside to attest his guilt, whilst the clansmen call\nupon their gods to send down lightnings and silence the perjured. The\ngods do not respond; and Siegfried, after whispering to Gunther that the\nTarnhelm seems to have been only half effectual after all, laughs his\nway out of the general embarrassment and goes off merrily to prepare for\nhis wedding, with his arm round Gutrune's waist, followed by the\nclan. Gunther, Hagen and Brynhild are left together to plot operatic\nvengeance. Brynhild, it appears, has enchanted Siegfried in such a\nfashion that no weapon can hurt him. She has, however, omitted to\nprotect his back, since it is impossible that he should ever turn that\nto a foe. They agree accordingly that on the morrow a great hunt shall\ntake place, at which Hagen shall thrust his spear into the hero's\nvulnerable back. The blame is to be laid on the tusk of a wild boar.\nGunther, being a fool, is remorseful about his oath of blood-brotherhood\nand about his sister's bereavement, without having the strength of mind\nto prevent the murder. The three burst into a herculean trio, similar\nin conception to that of the three conspirators in Un Ballo in Maschera;\nand the act concludes with a joyous strain heralding the appearance of\nSiegfried's wedding procession, with strewing of flowers, sacrificing to\nthe gods, and carrying bride and bridegroom in triumph.\n\nIt will be seen that in this act we have lost all connection with the\nearlier drama. Brynhild is not only not the Brynhild of The Valkyries,\nshe is the Hiordis of Ibsen, a majestically savage woman, in whom\njealousy and revenge are intensified to heroic proportions. That is the\ninevitable theatrical treatment of the murderous heroine of the Saga.\nIbsen's aim in The Vikings was purely theatrical, and not, as in his\nlater dramas, also philosophically symbolic. Wagner's aim in Siegfried's\nDeath was equally theatrical, and not, as it afterwards became in the\ndramas of which Siegfried's antagonist Wotan is the hero, likewise\nphilosophically symbolic. The two master-dramatists therefore produce\npractically the same version of Brynhild. Thus on the second evening of\nThe Ring we see Brynhild in the character of the truth-divining instinct\nin religion, cast into an enchanted slumber and surrounded by the fires\nof hell lest she should overthrow a Church corrupted by its alliance\nwith government. On the fourth evening, we find her swearing a malicious\nlie to gratify her personal jealousy, and then plotting a treacherous\nmurder with a fool and a scoundrel. In the original draft of Siegfried's\nDeath, the incongruity is carried still further by the conclusion, at\nwhich the dead Brynhild, restored to her godhead by Wotan, and again a\nValkyrie, carries the slain Siegfried to Valhalla to live there happily\never after with its pious heroes.\n\nAs to Siegfried himself, he talks of women, both in this second act and\nthe next, with the air of a man of the world. \"Their tantrums,\" he\nsays, \"are soon over.\" Such speeches do not belong to the novice of the\npreceding drama, but to the original Siegfried's Tod, with its leading\ncharacters sketched on the ordinary romantic lines from the old Sagas,\nand not yet reminted as the original creations of Wagner's genius whose\nacquaintance we have made on the two previous evenings. The very\ntitle \"Siegfried's Death\" survives as a strong theatrical point in the\nfollowing passage. Gunther, in his rage and despair, cries, \"Save me,\nHagen: save my honor and thy mother's who bore us both.\" \"Nothing can\nsave thee,\" replies Hagen: \"neither brain nor hand, but SIEGFRIED'S\nDEATH.\" And Gunther echoes with a shudder, \"SIEGFRIED'S DEATH!\"\n\n\n\n\nA WAGNERIAN NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY\n\nThe devotion which Wagner's work inspires has been illustrated lately\nin a public correspondence on this very point. A writer in The Daily\nTelegraph having commented on the falsehood uttered by Brynhild in\naccusing Siegfried of having betrayed Gunther with her, a correspondence\nin defence of the beloved heroine was opened in The Daily Chronicle. The\nimputation of falsehood to Brynhild was strongly resented and combated,\nin spite of the unanswerable evidence of the text. It was contended that\nBrynhild's statement must be taken as establishing the fact that she\nactually was ravished by somebody whom she believed to be Siegfried,\nand that since this somebody cannot have been Siegfried, he being as\nincapable of treachery to Gunther as she of falsehood, it must have been\nGunther himself after a second exchange of personalities not mentioned\nin the text. The reply to this--if so obviously desperate a hypothesis\nneeds a reply--is that the text is perfectly explicit as to Siegfried,\ndisguised as Gunther, passing the night with Brynhild with Nothung\ndividing them, and in the morning bringing her down the mountain THROUGH\nTHE FIRE (an impassable obstacle to Gunther) and there transporting\nhimself in a single breath, by the Tarnhelm's magic, back to the hall\nof the Gibichungs, leaving the real Gunther to bring Brynhild down\nthe river after him. One controversialist actually pleaded for the\nexpedition occupying two nights, on the second of which the alleged\noutrage might have taken place. But the time is accounted for to the\nlast minute: it all takes place during the single night watch of\nHagen. There is no possible way out of the plain fact that Brynhild's\naccusation is to her own knowledge false; and the impossible ways just\ncited are only interesting as examples of the fanatical worship\nwhich Wagner and his creations have been able to inspire in minds of\nexceptional power and culture.\n\nMore plausible was the line taken by those who admitted the falsehood.\nTheir contention was that when Wotan deprived Brynhild of her Godhead,\nhe also deprived her of her former high moral attributes; so that\nSiegfried's kiss awakened an ordinary mortal jealous woman. But a\ngoddess can become mortal and jealous without plunging at once into\nperjury and murder. Besides, this explanation involves the sacrifice of\nthe whole significance of the allegory, and the reduction of The Ring to\nthe plane of a child's conception of The Sleeping Beauty. Whoever does\nnot understand that, in terms of The Ring philosophy, a change from\ngodhead to humanity is a step higher and not a degradation, misses the\nwhole point of The Ring. It is precisely because the truthfulness of\nBrynhild is proof against Wotan's spells that he has to contrive the\nfire palisade with Loki, to protect the fictions and conventions of\nValhalla against her.\n\nThe only tolerable view is the one supported by the known history of\nThe Ring, and also, for musicians of sufficiently fine judgment, by the\nevidence of the scores; of which more anon. As a matter of fact Wagner\nbegan, as I have said, with Siegfried's Death. Then, wanting to develop\nthe idea of Siegfried as neo-Protestant, he went on to The Young\nSiegfried. As a Protestant cannot be dramatically projected without a\npontifical antagonist. The Young Siegfried led to The Valkyries, and\nthat again to its preface The Rhine Gold (the preface is always written\nafter the book is finished). Finally, of course, the whole was revised.\nThe revision, if carried out strictly, would have involved the cutting\nout of Siegfried's Death, now become inconsistent and superfluous; and\nthat would have involved, in turn, the facing of the fact that The Ring\nwas no longer a Niblung epic, and really demanded modern costumes, tall\nhats for Tarnhelms, factories for Nibelheims, villas for Valhallas, and\nso on--in short, a complete confession of the extent to which the old\nNiblung epic had become the merest pretext and name directory in the\ncourse of Wagner's travail. But, as Wagner's most eminent English\ninterpreter once put it to me at Bayreuth between the acts of Night\nFalls On The Gods, the master wanted to \"Lohengrinize\" again after his\nlong abstention from opera; and Siegfried's Death (first sketched in\n1848, the year before the rising in Dresden and the subsequent events\nwhich so deepened Wagner's sense of life and the seriousness of art)\ngave him exactly the libretto he required for that outbreak of the\nold operatic Adam in him. So he changed it into Die Gotterdammerung,\nretaining the traditional plot of murder and jealousy, and with it,\nnecessarily, his original second act, in spite of the incongruity of its\nSiegfried and Brynhild with the Siegfried and Brynhild of the allegory.\nAs to the legendary matter about the world-ash and the destruction of\nValhalla by Loki, it fitted in well enough; for though, allegorically,\nthe blow by which Siegfried breaks the god's spear is the end of Wotan\nand of Valhalla, those who do not see the allegory, and take the story\nliterally, like children, are sure to ask what becomes of Wotan after\nSiegfried gets past him up the mountain; and to this question the old\ntale told in Night Falls On The Gods is as good an answer as another.\nThe very senselessness of the scenes of the Norns and of Valtrauta in\nrelation to the three foregoing dramas, gives them a highly effective\nair of mystery; and no one ventures to challenge their consequentiality,\nbecause we are all more apt to pretend to understand great works of art\nthan to confess that the meaning (if any) has escaped us. Valtrauta,\nhowever, betrays her irrelevance by explaining that the gods can\nbe saved by the restoration of the ring to the Rhine maidens. This,\nconsidered as part of the previous allegory, is nonsense; so that even\nthis scene, which has a more plausible air of organic connection with\nThe Valkyries than any other in Night Falls On The Gods, is as clearly\npart of a different and earlier conception as the episode which\nconcludes it, in which Siegfried actually robs Brynhild of her ring,\nthough he has no recollection of having given it to her. Night Falls On\nThe Gods, in fact, was not even revised into any real coherence with the\nworld-poem which sprang from it; and that is the authentic solution of\nall the controversies which have arisen over it.\n\nThe Third Act\n\nThe hunting party comes off duly. Siegfried strays from it and meets\nthe Rhine maidens, who almost succeed in coaxing the ring from him. He\npretends to be afraid of his wife; and they chaff him as to her beating\nhim and so forth; but when they add that the ring is accursed and will\nbring death upon him, he discloses to them, as unconsciously as Julius\nCaesar disclosed it long ago, that secret of heroism, never to let your\nlife be shaped by fear of its end. [*] So he keeps the ring; and they leave\nhim to his fate. The hunting party now finds him; and they all sit\ndown together to make a meal by the river side, Siegfried telling them\nmeanwhile the story of his adventures. When he approaches the subject of\nBrynhild, as to whom his memory is a blank, Hagen pours an antidote\nto the love philtre into his drinking horn, whereupon, his memory\nreturning, he proceeds to narrate the incident of the fiery mountain, to\nGunther's intense mortification. Hagen then plunges his spear into the\nback of Siegfried, who falls dead on his shield, but gets up again,\nafter the old operatic custom, to sing about thirty bars to his love\nbefore allowing himself to be finally carried off to the strains of the\nfamous Trauermarsch.\n\n     * \"We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of\n     the word. The fear of the end is the source of all\n     lovelessness; and this fear is generated only when love\n     begins to wane. How came it that this loves the highest\n     blessedness to all things living, was so far lost sight of\n     by the human race that at last it came to this: all that\n     mankind did, ordered, and established, was conceived only in\n     fear of the end? My poem sets this forth.\"--Wagner to\n     Roeckel, 25th Jan. 1854.\n\n\nThe scene then changes to the hall of the Gibichungs by the Rhine. It is\nnight; and Gutrune, unable to sleep, and haunted by all sorts of vague\nterrors, is waiting for the return of her husband, and wondering\nwhether a ghostly figure she has seen gliding down to the river bank is\nBrynhild, whose room is empty. Then comes the cry of Hagen, returning\nwith the hunting party to announce the death of Siegfried by the tusk of\na wild boar. But Gutrune divines the truth; and Hagen does not deny it.\nSiegfried's body is brought in; Gunther claims the ring; Hagen will\nnot suffer him to take it; they fight; and Gunther is slain. Hagen then\nattempts to take it; but the dead man's hand closes on it and raises\nitself threateningly. Then Brynhild comes; and a funeral pyre is raised\nwhilst she declaims a prolonged scene, extremely moving and imposing,\nbut yielding nothing to resolute intellectual criticism except a very\npowerful and elevated exploitation of theatrical pathos, psychologically\nidentical with the scene of Cleopatra and the dead Antony in\nShakespeare's tragedy. Finally she flings a torch into the pyre, and\nrides her war-horse into the flames. The hall of the Gibichungs catches\nfire, as most halls would were a cremation attempted in the middle\nof the floor (I permit myself this gibe purposely to emphasize the\nexcessive artificiality of the scene); but the Rhine overflows its\nbanks to allow the three Rhine maidens to take the ring from Siegfried's\nfinger, incidentally extinguishing the conflagration as it does so.\nHagen attempts to snatch the ring from the maidens, who promptly drown\nhim; and in the distant heavens the Gods and their castle are seen\nperishing in the fires of Loki as the curtain falls.\n\n\n\n\nFORGOTTEN ERE FINISHED\n\nIn all this, it will be observed, there is nothing new. The musical\nfabric is enormously elaborate and gorgeous; but you cannot say, as you\nmust in witnessing The Rhine Gold, The Valkyries, and the first two acts\nof Siegfried, that you have never seen anything like it before, and that\nthe inspiration is entirely original. Not only the action, but most\nof the poetry, might conceivably belong to an Elizabethan drama. The\nsituation of Cleopatra and Antony is unconsciously reproduced without\nbeing bettered, or even equalled in point of majesty and musical\nexpression. The loss of all simplicity and dignity, the impossibility\nof any credible scenic presentation of the incidents, and the extreme\nstaginess of the conventions by which these impossibilities are got\nover, are no doubt covered from the popular eye by the overwhelming\nprestige of Die Gotterdammerung as part of so great a work as The Ring,\nand by the extraordinary storm of emotion and excitement which the music\nkeeps up. But the very qualities that intoxicate the novice in music\nenlighten the adept. In spite of the fulness of the composer's technical\naccomplishment, the finished style and effortless mastery of harmony and\ninstrumentation displayed, there is not a bar in the work which moves\nus as the same themes moved us in The Valkyries, nor is anything but\nexternal splendor added to the life and humor of Siegfried.\n\nIn the original poem, Brynhild delays her self-immolation on the pyre of\nSiegfried to read the assembled choristers a homily on the efficacy of\nthe Love panacea. \"My holiest wisdom's hoard,\" she says, \"now I make\nknown to the world. I believe not in property, nor money, nor godliness,\nnor hearth and high place, nor pomp and peerage, nor contract and\ncustom, but in Love. Let that only prevail; and ye shall be blest in\nweal or woe.\" Here the repudiations still smack of Bakoonin; but the\nsaviour is no longer the volition of the full-grown spirit of Man, the\nFree Willer of Necessity, sword in hand, but simply Love, and not even\nShelleyan love, but vehement sexual passion. It is highly significant\nof the extent to which this uxorious commonplace lost its hold of Wagner\n(after disturbing his conscience, as he confesses to Roeckel, for years)\nthat it disappears in the full score of Night Falls On The Gods, which\nwas not completed until he was on the verge of producing Parsifal,\ntwenty years after the publication of the poem. He cut the homily out,\nand composed the music of the final scene with a flagrant recklessness\nof the old intention. The rigorous logic with which representative\nmusical themes are employed in the earlier dramas is here abandoned\nwithout scruple; and for the main theme at the conclusion he selects a\nrapturous passage sung by Sieglinda in the third act of The Valkyries\nwhen Brynhild inspires her with a sense of her high destiny as the\nmother of the unborn hero. There is no dramatic logic whatever in the\nrecurrence of this theme to express the transport in which Brynhild\nimmolates herself. There is of course an excuse for it, inasmuch as both\nwomen have an impulse of self-sacrifice for the sake of Siegfried; but\nthis is really hardly more than an excuse; since the Valhalla theme\nmight be attached to Alberic on the no worse ground that both he and\nWotan are inspired by ambition, and that the ambition has the same\nobject, the possession of the ring. The common sense of the matter is\nthat the only themes which had fully retained their significance in\nWagner's memory at the period of the composition of Night Falls On The\nGods are those which are mere labels of external features, such as\nthe Dragon, the Fire, the Water and so on. This particular theme of\nSieglinda's is, in truth, of no great musical merit: it might easily\nbe the pet climax of a popular sentimental ballad: in fact, the gushing\neffect which is its sole valuable quality is so cheaply attained that\nit is hardly going too far to call it the most trumpery phrase in the\nentire tetralogy. Yet, since it undoubtedly does gush very emphatically,\nWagner chose, for convenience' sake, to work up this final scene with it\nrather than with the more distinguished, elaborate and beautiful themes\nconnected with the love of Brynhild and Siegfried.\n\nHe would certainly not have thought this a matter of no consequence had\nhe finished the whole work ten years earlier. It must always be borne\nin mind that the poem of The Ring was complete and printed in 1853,\nand represents the sociological ideas which, after germinating in the\nEuropean atmosphere for many years, had been brought home to Wagner,\nwho was intensely susceptible to such ideas, by the crash of 1849 at\nDresden. Now no man whose mind is alive and active, as Wagner's was to\nthe day of his death, can keep his political and spiritual opinions,\nmuch less his philosophic consciousness, at a standstill for quarter\nof a century until he finishes an orchestral score. When Wagner first\nsketched Night Falls On The Gods he was 35. When he finished the score\nfor the first Bayreuth festival in 1876 he had turned 60. No wonder he\nhad lost his old grip of it and left it behind him. He even\ntampered with The Rhine Gold for the sake of theatrical effect when\nstage-managing it, making Wotan pick up and brandish a sword to give\nvisible point to his sudden inspiration as to the raising up of a\nhero. The sword had first to be discovered by Fafnir among the Niblung\ntreasures and thrown away by him as useless. There is no sense in this\ndevice; and its adoption shows the same recklessness as to the original\nintention which we find in the music of the last act of The Dusk of the\nGods. [*]\n\n     * Die Gotterdammerung means literally Godsgloaming. The\n     English versions of the opera are usually called The Dusk of\n     the Gods, or The Twilight of the Gods. I have purposely\n     introduced the ordinary title in the sentence above for the\n     reader's information.\n\n\n\n\nWHY HE CHANGED HIS MIND\n\nWagner, however, was not the man to allow his grip of a great\nphilosophic theme to slacken even in twenty-five years if the theme\nstill held good as a theory of actual life. If the history of Germany\nfrom 1849 to 1876 had been the history of Siegfried and Wotan transposed\ninto the key of actual life Night Falls On The Gods would have been the\nlogical consummation of Das Rheingold and The Valkyrie instead of the\noperatic anachronism it actually is.\n\nBut, as a matter of fact, Siegfried did not succeed and Bismarck did.\nRoeckel was a prisoner whose imprisonment made no difference; Bakoonin\nbroke up, not Walhall, but the International, which ended in an\nundignified quarrel between him and Karl Marx. The Siegfrieds of 1848\nwere hopeless political failures, whereas the Wotans and Alberics and\nLokis were conspicuous political successes. Even the Mimes held their own\nas against Siegfried. With the single exception of Ferdinand Lassalle,\nthere was no revolutionary leader who was not an obvious impossibilist\nin practical politics; and Lassalle got himself killed in a romantic\nand quite indefensible duel after wrecking his health in a titanic\noratorical campaign which convinced him that the great majority of the\nworking classes were not ready to join him, and that the minority who\nwere ready did not understand him. The International, founded in 1861\nby Karl Marx in London, and mistaken for several years by nervous\nnewspapers for a red spectre, was really only a turnip ghost. It\nachieved some beginnings of International Trade Unionism by inducing\nEnglish workmen to send money to support strikes on the continent, and\nrecalling English workers who had been taken across the North Sea to\ndefeat such strikes; but on its revolutionary socialistic side it was a\nromantic figment. The suppression of the Paris Commune, one of the\nmost tragic examples in history of the pitilessness with which capable\npractical administrators and soldiers are forced by the pressure of\nfacts to destroy romantic amateurs and theatrical dreamers, made an end\nof melodramatic Socialism. It was as easy for Marx to hold up Thiers\nas the most execrable of living scoundrels and to put upon Gallifet the\nbrand that still makes him impossible in French politics as it was for\nVictor Hugo to bombard Napoleon III from his paper battery in Jersey.\nIt was also easy to hold up Felix Pyat and Delescluze as men of much\nloftier ideals than Thiers and Gallifet; but the one fact that could not\nbe denied was that when it came to actual shooting, it was Gallifet who\ngot Delescluze shot and not Delescluze who got Gallifet shot, and that\nwhen it came to administering the affairs of France, Thiers could in\none way or another get it done, whilst Pyat could neither do it nor stop\ntalking and allow somebody else to do it. True, the penalty of following\nThiers was to be exploited by the landlord and capitalist; but then the\npenalty of following Pyat was to get shot like a mad dog, or at best get\nsent to New Caledonia, quite unnecessarily and uselessly.\n\nTo put it in terms of Wagner's allegory, Alberic had got the ring back\nagain and was marrying into the best Walhall families with it. He had\nthought better of his old threat to dethrone Wotan and Loki. He had\nfound that Nibelheim was a very gloomy place and that if he wanted to\nlive handsomely and safely, he must not only allow Wotan and Loki to\norganize society for him, but pay them very handsomely for doing it. He\nwanted splendor, military glory, loyalty, enthusiasm, and patriotism;\nand his greed and gluttony were wholly unable to create them, whereas\nWotan and Loki carried them all to a triumphant climax in Germany in\n1871, when Wagner himself celebrated the event with his Kaisermarsch,\nwhich sounded much more convincing than the Marseillaise or the\nCarmagnole.\n\nHow, after the Kaisermarsch, could Wagner go back to his idealization of\nSiegfried in 1853? How could he believe seriously in Siegfried slaying\nthe dragon and charging through the mountain fire, when the immediate\nforeground was occupied by the Hotel de Ville with Felix Pyat endlessly\ndiscussing the principles of Socialism whilst the shells of Thiers were\nalready battering the Arc de Triomphe, and ripping up the pavement of\nthe Champs Elysees? Is it not clear that things had taken an altogether\nunexpected turn--that although the Ring may, like the famous Communist\nManifesto of Marx and Engels, be an inspired guest at the historic laws\nand predestined end of our capitalistic-theocratic epoch, yet\nWagner, like Marx, was too inexperienced in technical government\nand administration and too melodramatic in his hero-contra-villain\nconception of the class struggle, to foresee the actual process by which\nhis generalization would work out, or the part to be played in it by the\nclasses involved?\n\nLet us go back for a moment to the point at which the Niblung legend\nfirst becomes irreconcilable with Wagner's allegory. Fafnir in the\nallegory becomes a capitalist; but Fafnir in the legend is a mere\nhoarder. His gold does not bring him in any revenue. It does not even\nsupport him: he has to go out and forage for food and drink. In fact,\nhe is on the way to his drinking-pool when Siegfried kills him. And\nSiegfried himself has no more use for gold than Fafnir: the only\ndifference between them in this respect is that Siegfried does not waste\nhis time in watching a barren treasure that is no use to him, whereas\nFafnir sacrifices his humanity and his life merely to prevent anybody\nelse getting it. This contrast is true to human nature; but it shunts\nThe Ring drama off the economic lines of the allegory. In real life,\nFafnir is not a miser: he seeks dividends, comfortable life, and\nadmission to the circles of Wotan and Loki. His only means of procuring\nthese is to restore the gold to Alberic in exchange for scrip in\nAlberic's enterprises. Thus fortified with capital, Alberic exploits his\nfellow dwarfs as before, and also exploits Fafnir's fellow giants who\nhave no capital. What is more, the toil, forethought and self-control\nwhich the exploitation involves, and the self-respect and social esteem\nwhich its success wins, effect an improvement in Alberic's own character\nwhich neither Marx nor Wagner appear to have foreseen. He discovers that\nto be a dull, greedy, narrow-minded money-grubber is not the way to make\nmoney on a large scale; for though greed may suffice to turn tens\ninto hundreds and even hundreds into thousands, to turn thousands into\nhundreds of thousands requires magnanimity and a will to power rather\nthan to pelf. And to turn thousands into millions, Alberic must make\nhimself an earthly providence for masses of workmen: he must create\ntowns and govern markets. In the meantime, Fafnir, wallowing in\ndividends which he has done nothing to earn, may rot, intellectually\nand morally, from mere disuse of his energies and lack of incentive to\nexcel; but the more imbecile he becomes, the more dependent he is upon\nAlberic, and the more the responsibility of keeping the world-machine in\nworking order falls upon Alberic. Consequently, though Alberic in 1850\nmay have been merely the vulgar Manchester Factory-owner portrayed by\nEngels, in 1876 he was well on the way towards becoming Krupp of Essen\nor Carnegie of Homestead.\n\nNow, without exaggerating the virtues of these gentlemen, it will\nbe conceded by everybody except perhaps those veteran German\nSocial-Democrats who have made a cult of obsolescence under the name\nof Marxism, that the modern entrepreneur is not to be displaced and\ndismissed so lightly as Alberic is dismissed in The Ring. They are\nreally the masters of the whole situation. Wotan is hardly less\ndependent on them than Fafnir; the War-Lord visits their work, acclaims\nthem in stirring speeches, and casts down their enemies; whilst Loki\nmakes commercial treaties for them and subjects all his diplomacy to\ntheir approval.\n\nThe end cannot come until Siegfried learns Alberic's trade and shoulders\nAlberic's burden. Not having as yet done so, he is still completely\nmastered by Alberic. He does not even rebel against him except when he\nis too stupid and ignorant, or too romantically impracticable, to see\nthat Alberic's work, like Wotan's work and Loki's work, is necessary\nwork, and that therefore Alberic can never be superseded by a warrior,\nbut only by a capable man of business who is prepared to continue his\nwork without a day's intermission. Even though the proletarians of all\nlands were to become \"class conscious,\" and obey the call of Marx by\nuniting to carry the Class struggle to a proletarian victory in\nwhich all capital should become common property, and all Monarchs,\nMillionaires, Landlords and Capitalists become common citizens, the\ntriumphant proletarians would have either to starve in Anarchy the next\nday or else do the political and industrial work which is now being\ndone tant bien que mal by our Romanoffs, our Hohenzollerns, our Krupps,\nCarnegies, Levers, Pierpont Morgans, and their political retinues. And\nin the meantime these magnates must defend their power and property\nwith all their might against the revolutionary forces until these\nforces become positive, executive, administrative forces, instead of the\nconspiracies of protesting, moralizing, virtuously indignant amateurs\nwho mistook Marx for a man of affairs and Thiers for a stage villain.\nBut all this represents a development of which one gathers no forecast\nfrom Wagner or Marx. Both of them prophesied the end of our epoch, and,\nso far as one can guess, prophesied it rightly. They also brought its\nindustrial history up to the year 1848 far more penetratingly than the\nacademic historians of their time. But they broke off there and left\na void between 1848 and the end, in which we, who have to live in that\nperiod, get no guidance from them. The Marxists wandered for years\nin this void, striving, with fanatical superstition, to suppress the\nRevisionists who, facing the fact that the Social-Democratic party was\nlost, were trying to find the path by the light of contemporary history\ninstead of vainly consulting the oracle in the pages of Das Kapital.\nMarx himself was too simpleminded a recluse and too full of the\nvalidity of his remoter generalizations, and the way in which the rapid\nintegration of capital in Trusts and Kartels was confirming them, to be\nconscious of the void himself.\n\nWagner, on the other hand, was comparatively a practical man. It is\npossible to learn more of the world by producing a single opera, or even\nconducting a single orchestral rehearsal, than by ten years reading in\nthe Library of the British Museum. Wagner must have learnt between Das\nRheingold and the Kaisermarsch that there are yet several dramas to be\ninterpolated in The Ring after The Valkyries before the allegory can\ntell the whole story, and that the first of these interpolated dramas\nwill be much more like a revised Rienzi than like Siegfried. If\nanyone doubts the extent to which Wagner's eyes had been opened to the\nadministrative-childishness and romantic conceit of the heroes of\nthe revolutionary generation that served its apprenticeship on the\nbarricades of 1848-9, and perished on those of 1870 under Thiers'\nmitrailleuses, let him read Eine Kapitulation, that scandalous burlesque\nin which the poet and composer of Siegfried, with the levity of a\nschoolboy, mocked the French republicans who were doing in 1871 what he\nhimself was exiled for doing in 1849. He had set the enthusiasm of the\nDresden Revolution to his own greatest music; but he set the enthusiasm\nof twenty years later in derision to the music of Rossini. There is\nno mistaking the tune he meant to suggest by his doggerel of Republik,\nRepublik, Republik-lik-lik. The Overture to William Tell is there as\nplainly as if it were noted down in full score.\n\nIn the case of such a man as Wagner, you cannot explain this volte-face\nas mere jingoism produced by Germany's overwhelming victory in the\nFranco-Prussian War, nor as personal spite against the Parisians for the\nTannhauser fiasco. Wagner had more cause for personal spite against\nhis own countrymen than he ever had against the French. No doubt his\noutburst gratified the pettier feelings which great men have in common\nwith small ones; but he was not a man to indulge in such gratifications,\nor indeed to feel them as gratifications, if he had not arrived at a\nprofound philosophical contempt for the inadequacy of the men who were\ntrying to wield Nothung, and who had done less work for Wagner's own\nart than a single German King and he, too, only a mad one. Wagner had by\nthat time done too much himself not to know that the world is ruled by\ndeeds, not by good intentions, and that one efficient sinner is worth\nten futile saints and martyrs.\n\nI need not elaborate the point further in these pages. Like all men of\ngenius, Wagner had exceptional sincerity, exceptional respect for facts,\nexceptional freedom from the hypnotic influence of sensational popular\nmovements, exceptional sense of the realities of political power as\ndistinguished from the presences and idolatries behind which the real\nmasters of modern States pull their wires and train their guns. When he\nscored Night Falls On The Gods, he had accepted the failure of Siegfried\nand the triumph of the Wotan-Loki-Alberic-trinity as a fact. He had\ngiven up dreaming of heroes, heroines, and final solutions, and had\nconceived a new protagonist in Parsifal, whom he announced, not as\na hero, but as a fool; who was armed, not with a sword which cut\nirresistibly, but with a spear which he held only on condition that he\ndid not use it; and who instead of exulting in the slaughter of a\ndragon was frightfully ashamed of having shot a swan. The change in the\nconception of the Deliverer could hardly be more complete. It reflects\nthe change which took place in Wagner's mind between the composition\nof The Rhine Gold and Night Falls On The Gods; and it explains why\nhe dropped The Ring allegory and fell back on the status quo ante by\nLohengrinizing.\n\nIf you ask why he did not throw Siegfried into the waste paper basket\nand rewrite The Ring from The Valkyries onwards, one must reply that the\ntime had not come for such a feat. Neither Wagner nor anyone else then\nliving knew enough to achieve it. Besides, what he had already done had\nreached the limit of even his immense energy and perseverance and so\nhe did the best he could with the unfinished and for ever unfinishable\nwork, rounding it off with an opera much as Rossini rounded off some of\nhis religious compositions with a galop. Only, Rossini on such occasions\nwrote in his score \"Excusez du peu,\" but Wagner left us to find out the\nchange for ourselves, perhaps to test how far we had really followed his\nmeaning.\n\n\n\n\nWAGNER'S OWN EXPLANATION\n\nAnd now, having given my explanation of The Ring, can I give Wagner's\nexplanation of it? If I could (and I can) I should not by any means\naccept it as conclusive. Nearly half a century has passed since the\ntetralogy was written; and in that time the purposes of many half\ninstinctive acts of genius have become clearer to the common man than\nthey were to the doers. Some years ago, in the course of an explanation\nof Ibsen's plays, I pointed out that it was by no means certain or even\nlikely that Ibsen was as definitely conscious of his thesis as I. All\nthe stupid people, and some critics who, though not stupid, had not\nthemselves written what the Germans call \"tendency\" works, saw nothing\nin this but a fantastic affectation of the extravagant self-conceit\nof knowing more about Ibsen than Ibsen himself. Fortunately, in taking\nexactly the same position now with regard to Wagner, I can claim his own\nauthority to support me. \"How,\" he wrote to Roeckel on the 23rd. August\n1856, \"can an artist expect that what he has felt intuitively should\nbe perfectly realized by others, seeing that he himself feels in the\npresence of his work, if it is true Art, that he is confronted by a\nriddle, about which he, too, might have illusions, just as another\nmight?\"\n\nThe truth is, we are apt to deify men of genius, exactly as we deify the\ncreative force of the universe, by attributing to logical design what\nis the result of blind instinct. What Wagner meant by \"true Art\" is the\noperation of the artist's instinct, which is just as blind as any other\ninstinct. Mozart, asked for an explanation of his works, said frankly\n\"How do I know?\" Wagner, being a philosopher and critic as well as\na composer, was always looking for moral explanations of what he had\ncreated and he hit on several very striking ones, all different. In the\nsame way one can conceive Henry the Eighth speculating very brilliantly\nabout the circulation of his own blood without getting as near the truth\nas Harvey did long after his death.\n\nNone the less, Wagner's own explanations are of exceptional interest. To\nbegin with, there is a considerable portion of The Ring, especially the\nportraiture of our capitalistic industrial system from the socialist's\npoint of view in the slavery of the Niblungs and the tyranny of Alberic,\nwhich is unmistakable, as it dramatizes that portion of human activity\nwhich lies well within the territory covered by our intellectual\nconsciousness. All this is concrete Home Office business, so to speak:\nits meaning was as clear to Wagner as it is to us. Not so that part\nof the work which deals with the destiny of Wotan. And here, as it\nhappened, Wagner's recollection of what he had been driving at was\ncompletely upset by his discovery, soon after the completion of The\nRing poem, of Schopenhaur's famous treatise \"The World as Will and\nRepresentation.\" So obsessed did he become with this masterpiece of\nphilosophic art that he declared that it contained the intellectual\ndemonstration of the conflict of human forces which he himself had\ndemonstrated artistically in his great poem. \"I must confess,\" he writes\nto Roeckel, \"to having arrived at a clear understanding of my own\nworks of art through the help of another, who has provided me with the\nreasoned conceptions corresponding to my intuitive principles.\"\n\nSchopenhaur, however, had done nothing of the sort. Wagner's\ndetermination to prove that he had been a Schopenhaurite all along\nwithout knowing it only shows how completely the fascination of the\ngreat treatise on The Will had run away with his memory. It is easy to\nsee how this happened. Wagner says of himself that \"seldom has there\ntaken place in the soul of one and the same man so profound a division\nand estrangement between the intuitive or impulsive part of his nature\nand his consciously or reasonably formed ideas.\" And since Schopenhaur's\ngreat contribution to modern thought was to educate us into clear\nconsciousness of this distinction--a distinction familiar, in a fanciful\nway, to the Ages of Faith and Art before the Renascence, but afterwards\nswamped in the Rationalism of that movement--it was inevitable that\nWagner should jump at Schopenhaur's metaphysiology (I use a word less\nlikely to be mistaken than metaphysics) as the very thing for him. But\nmetaphysiology is one thing, political philosophy another. The political\nphilosophy of Siegfried is exactly contrary to the political philosophy\nof Schopenhaur, although the same clear metaphysiological distinction\nbetween the instinctive part of man (his Will) and his reasoning faculty\n(dramatized in The Ring as Loki) is insisted on in both. The difference\nis that to Schopenhaur the Will is the universal tormentor of man, the\nauthor of that great evil, Life; whilst reason is the divine gift that\nis finally to overcome this life-creating will and lead, through its\nabnegation, to cessation and peace, annihilation and Nirvana. This is\nthe doctrine of Pessimism. Now Wagner was, when he wrote The Ring, a\nmost sanguine revolutionary Meliorist, contemptuous of the reasoning\nfaculty, which he typified in the shifty, unreal, delusive Loki, and\nfull of faith in the life-giving Will, which he typified in the glorious\nSiegfried. Not until he read Schopenhaur did he become bent on proving\nthat he had always been a Pessimist at heart, and that Loki was the most\nsensible and worthy adviser of Wotan in The Rhine Gold.\n\nSometimes he faces the change in his opinions frankly enough. \"My\nNiblung drama,\" he writes to Roeckel, \"had taken form at a time when I\nhad built up with my reason an optimistic world on Hellenic principles,\nbelieving that nothing was necessary for the realization of such a world\nbut that men should wish it. I ingeniously set aside-the problem why\nthey did not wish it. I remember that it was with this definite\ncreative purpose that I conceived the personality of Siegfried, with the\nintention of representing an existence free from pain.\" But he appeals\nto his earlier works to show that behind all these artificial optimistic\nideas there was always with him an intuition of \"the sublime tragedy of\nrenunciation, the negation of the will.\" In trying to explain this, he\nis full of ideas philosophically, and full of the most amusing\ncontradictions personally. Optimism, as an accidental excursion into the\nbarren paths of reason on his own part, he calls \"Hellenic.\" In others\nhe denounces it as rank Judaism, the Jew having at that time become for\nhim the whipping boy for all modern humanity. In a letter from London\nhe expounds Schopenhaur to Roeckel with enthusiasm, preaching the\nrenunciation of the Will to Live as the redemption from all error and\nvain pursuits: in the next letter he resumes the subject with unabated\ninterest, and finishes by mentioning that on leaving London he went to\nGeneva and underwent \"a most beneficial course of hydropathy.\" Seven\nmonths before this he had written as follows: \"Believe me, I too was\nonce possessed by the idea of a country life. In order to become a\nradically healthy human being, I went two years ago to a Hydropathic\nEstablishment, prepared to give up Art and everything if I could once\nmore become a child of Nature. But, my good friend, I was obliged to\nlaugh at my own naivete when I found myself almost going mad. None of\nus will reach the promised land: we shall all die in the wilderness.\nIntellect is, as some one has said, a sort of disease: it is incurable.\"\n\nRoeckel knew his man of old, and evidently pressed him for explanations\nof the inconsistencies of The Ring with Night Falls On The Gods. Wagner\ndefended himself with unfailing cleverness and occasional petulances,\nranging from such pleas as \"I believe a true instinct has kept me from a\ntoo great definiteness; for it has been borne in on me that an absolute\ndisclosure of the intention disturbs true insight,\" to a volley of\nexplanations and commentaries on the explanations. He gets excited and\nannoyed because Roeckel will not admire the Brynhild of Night Falls On\nThe Gods; re-invents the Tarnhelm scene; and finally, the case being\ndesperate, exclaims, \"It is wrong of you to challenge me to explain it\nin words: you must feel that something is being enacted that is not to\nbe expressed in mere words.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE PESSIMIST AS AMORIST\n\nSometimes he gets very far away from Pessimism indeed, and recommends\nRoeckel to solace his captivity, not by conquering the will to live at\nliberty, but by \"the inspiring influences of the Beautiful.\" The next\nmoment he throws over even Art for Life. \"Where life ends,\" he says,\nvery wittily, \"Art begins. In youth we turn to Art, we know not why; and\nonly when we have gone through with Art and come out on the other side,\nwe learn to our cost that we have missed Life itself.\" His only comfort\nis that he is beloved. And on the subject of love he lets himself loose\nin a manner that would have roused the bitterest scorn in Schopenhaur,\nthough, as we have seen (Love Panacea), it is highly characteristic of\nWagner. \"Love in its most perfect reality,\" he says, \"is only possible\nbetween the sexes: it is only as man and woman that human beings can\ntruly love. Every other manifestation of love can be traced back to that\none absorbingly real feeling, of which all other affections are but an\nemanation, a connection, or an imitation. It is an error to look on this\nas only one of the forms in which love is revealed, as if there were\nother forms coequal with it, or even superior to it. He who after the\nmanner of metaphysicians prefers UNREALITY to REALITY, and derives the\nconcrete from the abstract--in short, puts the word before the fact--may\nbe right in esteeming the idea of love as higher than the expression\nof love, and may affirm that actual love made manifest in feeling\nis nothing but the outward and visible sign of a pre-existent,\nnon-sensuous, abstract love; and he will do well to despise that\nsensuous function in general. In any case it were safe to bet that such\na man had never loved or been loved as human beings can love, or he\nwould have understood that in despising this feeling, what he condemned\nwas its sensual expression, the outcome of man's animal nature, and\nnot true human love. The highest satisfaction and expression of the\nindividual is only to be found in his complete absorption, and that is\nonly possible through love. Now a human being is both MAN and WOMAN: it\nis only when these two are united that the real human being exists; and\nthus it is only by love that man and woman attain to the full measure\nof humanity. But when nowadays we talk of a human being, such heartless\nblockheads are we that quite involuntarily we only think of man. It is\nonly in the union of man and woman by love (sensuous and supersensuous)\nthat the human being exists; and as the human being cannot rise to the\nconception of anything higher than his own existence--his own being--so\nthe transcendent act of his life is this consummation of his humanity\nthrough love.\"\n\nIt is clear after this utterance from the would-be Schopenhaurian, that\nWagner's explanations of his works for the most part explain nothing but\nthe mood in which he happened to be on the day he advanced them, or\nthe train of thought suggested to his very susceptible imagination and\nactive mind by the points raised by his questioner. Especially in his\nprivate letters, where his outpourings are modified by his dramatic\nconsciousness of the personality of his correspondent, do we find him\ntaking all manner of positions, and putting forward all sorts of cases\nwhich must be taken as clever and suggestive special pleadings, and\nnot as serious and permanent expositions of his works. These works must\nspeak for themselves: if The Ring says one thing, and a letter written\nafterwards says that it said something else, The Ring must be taken to\nconfute the letter just as conclusively as if the two had been written\nby different hands. However, nobody fairly well acquainted with Wagner's\nutterances as a whole will find any unaccountable contradictions in\nthem. As in all men of his type, our manifold nature was so marked in\nhim that he was like several different men rolled into one. When he had\nexhausted himself in the character of the most pugnacious, aggressive,\nand sanguine of reformers, he rested himself as a Pessimist and\nNirvanist. In The Ring the quietism of Brynhild's \"Rest, rest, thou God\"\nis sublime in its deep conviction; but you have only to turn back the\npages to find the irrepressible bustle of Siegfried and the revelry of\nthe clansmen expressed with equal zest. Wagner was not a Schopenhaurite\nevery day in the week, nor even a Wagnerite. His mind changes as\noften as his mood. On Monday nothing will ever induce him to return to\nquilldriving: on Tuesday he begins a new pamphlet. On Wednesday he\nis impatient of the misapprehensions of people who cannot see how\nimpossible it is for him to preside as a conductor over platform\nperformances of fragments of his works, which can only be understood\nwhen presented strictly according to his intention on the stage: on\nThursday he gets up a concert of Wagnerian selections, and when it is\nover writes to his friends describing how profoundly both bandsmen and\naudience were impressed. On Friday he exults in the self-assertion\nof Siegfried's will against all moral ordinances, and is full of a\nrevolutionary sense of \"the universal law of change and renewal\": on\nSaturday he has an attack of holiness, and asks, \"Can you conceive a\nmoral action of which the root idea is not renunciation?\" In short,\nWagner can be quoted against himself almost without limit, much as\nBeethoven's adagios could be quoted against his scherzos if a dispute\narose between two fools as to whether he was a melancholy man or a merry\none.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MUSIC OF THE RING\n\nTHE REPRESENTATIVE THEMES\n\nTo be able to follow the music of The Ring, all that is necessary is to\nbecome familiar enough with the brief musical phrases out of which it\nis built to recognize them and attach a certain definite significance\nto them, exactly as any ordinary Englishman recognizes and attaches a\ndefinite significance to the opening bars of God Save the King. There is\nno difficulty here: every soldier is expected to learn and distinguish\nbetween different bugle calls and trumpet calls; and anyone who can\ndo this can learn and distinguish between the representative themes or\n\"leading motives\" (Leitmotifs) of The Ring. They are the easier to learn\nbecause they are repeated again and again; and the main ones are so\nemphatically impressed on the ear whilst the spectator is looking for\nthe first time at the objects, or witnessing the first strong dramatic\nexpression of the ideas they denote, that the requisite association is\nformed unconsciously. The themes are neither long, nor complicated, nor\ndifficult. Whoever can pick up the flourish of a coach-horn, the note of\na bird, the rhythm of the postman's knock or of a horse's gallop, will\nbe at no loss in picking up the themes of The Ring. No doubt, when it\ncomes to forming the necessary mental association with the theme, it\nmay happen that the spectator may find his ear conquering the tune more\neasily than his mind conquers the thought. But for the most part the\nthemes do not denote thoughts at all, but either emotions of a quite\nsimple universal kind, or the sights, sounds and fancies common enough\nto be familiar to children. Indeed some of them are as frankly childish\nas any of the funny little orchestral interludes which, in Haydn's\nCreation, introduce the horse, the deer, or the worm. We have both the\nhorse and the worm in The Ring, treated exactly in Haydn's manner, and\nwith an effect not a whit less ridiculous to superior people who decline\nto take it good-humoredly. Even the complaisance of good Wagnerites\nis occasionally rather overstrained by the way in which Brynhild's\nallusions to her charger Grani elicit from the band a little rum-ti-tum\ntriplet which by itself is in no way suggestive of a horse, although a\ncontinuous rush of such triplets makes a very exciting musical gallop.\n\nOther themes denote objects which cannot be imitatively suggested by\nmusic: for instance, music cannot suggest a ring, and cannot suggest\ngold; yet each of these has a representative theme which pervades the\nscore in all directions. In the case of the gold the association is\nestablished by the very salient way in which the orchestra breaks into\nthe pretty theme in the first act of The Rhine Gold at the moment when\nthe sunrays strike down through the water and light up the glittering\ntreasure, hitherto invisible. The reference of the strange little\ntheme of the wishing cap is equally manifest from the first, since the\nspectator's attention is wholly taken up with the Tarnhelm and its magic\nwhen the theme is first pointedly uttered by the orchestra. The sword\ntheme is introduced at the end of The Rhine Gold to express Wotan's hero\ninspiration; and I have already mentioned that Wagner, unable, when it\ncame to practical stage management, to forego the appeal to the eye as\nwell as to the thought, here made Wotan pick up a sword and brandish\nit, though no such instruction appears in the printed score. When this\nsacrifice to Wagner's scepticism as to the reality of any appeal to an\naudience that is not made through their bodily sense is omitted, the\nassociation of the theme with the sword is not formed until that point\nin the first act of The Valkyries at which Siegmund is left alone by\nHunding's hearth, weaponless, with the assurance that he will have to\nfight for his life at dawn with his host. He recalls then how his father\npromised him a sword for his hour of need; and as he does so, a flicker\nfrom the dying fire is caught by the golden hilt of the sword in the\ntree, when the theme immediately begins to gleam through the quiver of\nsound from the orchestra, and only dies out as the fire sinks and the\nsword is once more hidden by the darkness. Later on, this theme, which\nis never silent whilst Sieglinda is dwelling on the story of the sword,\nleaps out into the most dazzling splendor the band can give it when\nSiegmund triumphantly draws the weapon from the tree. As it consists of\nseven notes only, with a very marked measure, and a melody like a simple\nflourish on a trumpet or post horn, nobody capable of catching a tune\ncan easily miss it.\n\nThe Valhalla theme, sounded with solemn grandeur as the home of the gods\nfirst appears to us and to Wotan at the beginning of the second scene\nof The Rhine Gold, also cannot be mistaken. It, too, has a memorable\nrhythm; and its majestic harmonies, far from presenting those novel or\ncurious problems in polyphony of which Wagner still stands suspected by\nsuperstitious people, are just those three simple chords which festive\nstudents who vamp accompaniments to comic songs \"by ear\" soon find\nsufficient for nearly all the popular tunes in the world.\n\nOn the other hand, the ring theme, when it begins to hurtle through\nthe third scene of The Rhine Gold, cannot possibly be referred to any\nspecial feature in the general gloom and turmoil of the den of the\ndwarfs. It is not a melody, but merely the displaced metric accent which\nmusicians call syncopation, rung on the notes of the familiar chord\nformed by piling three minor thirds on top of one another (technically,\nthe chord of the minor ninth, ci-devant diminished seventh). One soon\npicks it up and identifies it; but it does not get introduced in the\nunequivocally clear fashion of the themes described above, or of that\nmalignant monstrosity, the theme which denotes the curse on the gold.\nConsequently it cannot be said that the musical design of the work is\nperfectly clear at the first hearing as regards all the themes; but\nit is so as regards most of them, the main lines being laid down as\nemphatically and intelligibly as the dramatic motives in a Shakespearean\nplay. As to the coyer subtleties of the score, their discovery provides\nfresh interest for repeated hearings, giving The Ring a Beethovenian\ninexhaustibility and toughness of wear.\n\nThe themes associated with the individual characters get stamped on the\nmemory easily by the simple association of the sound of the theme with\nthe appearance of the person indicated. Its appropriateness is generally\npretty obvious. Thus, the entry of the giants is made to a vigorous\nstumping, tramping measure. Mimmy, being a quaint, weird old creature,\nhas a quaint, weird theme of two thin chords that creep down eerily one\nto the other. Gutrune's theme is pretty and caressing: Gunther's bold,\nrough, and commonplace. It is a favorite trick of Wagner's, when one\nof his characters is killed on the stage, to make the theme attached\nto that character weaken, fail, and fade away with a broken echo into\nsilence.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHARACTERIZATION\n\nAll this, however, is the mere child's play of theme work. The more\ncomplex characters, instead of having a simple musical label attached\nto them, have their characteristic ideas and aspirations identified with\nspecial representative themes as they come into play in the drama; and\nthe chief merit of the thematic structure of The Ring is the mastery\nwith which the dramatic play of the ideas is reflected in the\ncontrapuntal play of the themes. We do not find Wotan, like the dragon\nor the horse, or, for the matter of that, like the stage demon in\nWeber's Freischutz or Meyerbeer's Robert the Devil, with one fixed theme\nattached to him like a name plate to an umbrella, blaring unaltered\nfrom the orchestra whenever he steps on the stage. Sometimes we have the\nValhalla theme used to express the greatness of the gods as an idea of\nWotan's. Again, we have his spear, the symbol of his power, identified\nwith another theme, on which Wagner finally exercises his favorite\ndevice by making it break and fail, cut through, as it were, by the\ntearing sound of the theme identified with the sword, when Siegfried\nshivers the spear with the stroke of Nothung. Yet another theme\nconnected with Wotan is the Wanderer music which breaks with such a\nmajestic reassurance on the nightmare terror of Mimmy when Wotan appears\nat the mouth of his cave in the scene of the three riddles. Thus not\nonly are there several Wotan themes, but each varies in its inflexions\nand shades of tone color according to its dramatic circumstances. So,\ntoo, the merry ham tune of the young Siegfried changes its measure,\nloads itself with massive harmonies, and becomes an exordium of the most\nimposing splendor when it heralds his entry as full-fledged hero in the\nprologue to Night Falls On The Gods. Even Mimmy has his two or three\nthemes: the weird one already described; the little one in triple\nmeasure imitating the tap of his hammer, and fiercely mocked in the\nsavage laugh of Alberic at his death; and finally the crooning tune in\nwhich he details all his motherly kindnesses to the little foundling\nSiegfried. Besides this there are all manner of little musical blinkings\nand shamblings and whinings, the least hint of which from the orchestra\nat any moment instantly brings Mimmy to mind, whether he is on the stage\nat the time or not.\n\nIn truth, dramatic characterization in music cannot be carried very far\nby the use of representative themes. Mozart, the greatest of all masters\nof this art, never dreamt of employing them; and, extensively as they\nare used in The Ring, they do not enable Wagner to dispense with the\nMozartian method. Apart from the themes, Siegfried and Mimmy are still\nas sharply distinguished from one another by the character of their\nmusic as Don Giovanni from Leporello, Wotan from Gutrune as Sarastro\nfrom Papagena. It is true that the themes attached to the characters\nhave the same musical appropriateness as the rest of the music: for\nexample, neither the Valhalla nor the spear themes could, without the\nmost ludicrous incongruity, be used for the forest bird or the unstable,\ndelusive Loki; but for all that the musical characterization must\nbe regarded as independent of the specific themes, since the entire\nelimination of the thematic system from the score would leave the\ncharacters as well distinguished musically as they are at present.\n\nOne more illustration of the way in which the thematic system is worked.\nThere are two themes connected with Loki. One is a rapid, sinuous,\ntwisting, shifty semiquaver figure suggested by the unsubstantial,\nelusive logic-spinning of the clever one's braincraft. The other is the\nfire theme. In the first act of Siegfried, Mimmy makes his unavailing\nattempt to explain fear to Siegfried. With the horror fresh upon him of\nthe sort of nightmare into which he has fallen after the departure\nof the Wanderer, and which has taken the form, at once fanciful and\nsymbolic, of a delirious dread of light, he asks Siegfried whether he\nhas never, whilst wandering in the forest, had his heart set hammering\nin frantic dread by the mysterious lights of the gloaming. To this,\nSiegfried, greatly astonished, replies that on such occasions his heart\nis altogether healthy and his sensations perfectly normal. Here Mimmy's\nquestion is accompanied by the tremulous sounding of the fire theme with\nits harmonies most oppressively disturbed and troubled; whereas with\nSiegfried's reply they become quite clear and straightforward, making\nthe theme sound bold, brilliant, and serene. This is a typical instance\nof the way in which the themes are used.\n\nThe thematic system gives symphonic interest, reasonableness, and unity\nto the music, enabling the composer to exhaust every aspect and quality\nof his melodic material, and, in Beethoven's manner, to work miracles\nof beauty, expression and significance with the briefest phrases. As a\nset-off against this, it has led Wagner to indulge in repetitions that\nwould be intolerable in a purely dramatic work. Almost the first thing\nthat a dramatist has to learn in constructing a play is that the persons\nmust not come on the stage in the second act and tell one another at\ngreat length what the audience has already seen pass before its eyes\nin the first act. The extent to which Wagner has been seduced into\nviolating this rule by his affection for his themes is startling to\na practiced playwright. Siegfried inherits from Wotan a mania for\nautobiography which leads him to inflict on every one he meets the\nstory of Mimmy and the dragon, although the audience have spent a whole\nevening witnessing the events he is narrating. Hagen tells the story\nto Gunther; and that same night Alberic's ghost tells it over again to\nHagen, who knows it already as well as the audience. Siegfried tells\nthe Rhine maidens as much of it as they will listen to, and then keeps\ntelling it to his hunting companions until they kill him. Wotan's\nautobiography on the second evening becomes his biography in the mouths\nof the Norns on the fourth. The little that the Norns add to it is\nrepeated an hour later by Valtrauta. How far all this repetition is\ntolerable is a matter of individual taste. A good story will bear\nrepetition; and if it has woven into it such pretty tunes as the Rhine\nmaidens' yodel, Mimmy's tinkling anvil beat, the note of the forest\nbird, the call of Siegfried's horn, and so on, it will bear a good deal\nof rehearing. Those who have but newly learnt their way through The Ring\nwill not readily admit that there is a bar too much repetition.\n\nBut how if you find some anti-Wagnerite raising the question whether the\nthematic system does not enable the composer to produce a music drama\nwith much less musical fertility than was required from his predecessors\nfor the composition of operas under the old system!\n\nSuch discussions are not within the scope of this little book. But as\nthe book is now finished (for really nothing more need be said about\nThe Ring), I am quite willing to add a few pages of ordinary musical\ncriticism, partly to please the amateurs who enjoy that sort of reading,\nand partly for the guidance of those who wish to obtain some hints to\nhelp them through such critical small talk about Wagner and Bayreuth as\nmay be forced upon them at the dinner table or between the acts.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD AND THE NEW MUSIC\n\nIn the old-fashioned opera every separate number involved the\ncomposition of a fresh melody; but it is quite a mistake to suppose that\nthis creative-effort extended continuously throughout the number from\nthe first to the last bar. When a musician composes according to a set\nmetrical pattern, the selection of the pattern and the composition\nof the first stave (a stave in music corresponds to a line in verse)\ngenerally completes the creative effort. All the rest follows more\nor less mechanically to fill up the pattern, an air being very like a\nwall-paper design in this respect. Thus the second stave is usually a\nperfectly obvious consequence of the first; and the third and fourth an\nexact or very slightly varied repetition of the first and second. For\nexample, given the first line of Pop Goes the Weasel or Yankee Doodle,\nany musical cobbler could supply the remaining three. There is very\nlittle tune turning of this kind in The Ring; and it is noteworthy that\nwhere it does occur, as in Siegmund's spring song and Mimmy's croon,\n\"Ein zullendes Kind,\" the effect of the symmetrical staves, recurring\nas a mere matter of form, is perceptibly poor and platitudinous compared\nwith the free flow of melody which prevails elsewhere.\n\nThe other and harder way of composing is to take a strain of free\nmelody, and ring every variety of change of mood upon it as if it were\na thought that sometimes brought hope, sometimes melancholy, sometimes\nexultation, sometimes raging despair and so on. To take several themes\nof this kind, and weave them together into a rich musical fabric\npassing panoramically before the ear with a continually varying flow of\nsentiment, is the highest feat of the musician: it is in this way that\nwe get the fugue of Bach and the symphony of Beethoven. The admittedly\ninferior musician is the one who, like Auber and Offenbach, not to\nmention our purveyors of drawing-room ballads, can produce an unlimited\nquantity of symmetrical tunes, but cannot weave themes symphonically.\n\nWhen this is taken into account, it will be seen that the fact that\nthere is a great deal of repetition in The Ring does not distinguish it\nfrom the old-fashioned operas. The real difference is that in them the\nrepetition was used for the mechanical completion of conventional\nmetric patterns, whereas in The Ring the recurrence of the theme is\nan intelligent and interesting consequence of the recurrence of the\ndramatic phenomenon which it denotes. It should be remembered also\nthat the substitution of symphonically treated themes for tunes with\nsymmetrical eight-bar staves and the like, has always been the rule in\nthe highest forms of music. To describe it, or be affected by it, as\nan abandonment of melody, is to confess oneself an ignoramus conversant\nonly with dance tunes and ballads.\n\nThe sort of stuff a purely dramatic musician produces when he hampers\nhimself with metric patterns in composition is not unlike what might\nhave resulted in literature if Carlyle (for example) had been compelled\nby convention to write his historical stories in rhymed stanzas. That\nis to say, it limits his fertility to an occasional phrase, and three\nquarters of the time exercises only his barren ingenuity in fitting\nrhymes and measures to it. In literature the great masters of the art\nhave long emancipated themselves from metric patterns. Nobody claims\nthat the hierarchy of modern impassioned prose writers, from Bunyan\nto Ruskin, should be placed below the writers of pretty lyrics, from\nHerrick to Mr. Austin Dobson. Only in dramatic literature do we find the\ndevastating tradition of blank verse still lingering, giving factitious\nprestige to the platitudes of dullards, and robbing the dramatic style\nof the genuine poet of its full natural endowment of variety, force and\nsimplicity.\n\nThis state of things, as we have seen, finds its parallel in musical\nart, since music can be written in prose themes or in versified tunes;\nonly here nobody dreams of disputing the greater difficulty of the prose\nforms, and the comparative triviality of versification. Yet in dramatic\nmusic, as in dramatic literature, the tradition of versification clings\nwith the same pernicious results; and the opera, like the tragedy, is\nconventionally made like a wall paper. The theatre seems doomed to be\nin all things the last refuge of the hankering after cheap prettiness in\nart.\n\nUnfortunately this confusion of the decorative with the dramatic element\nin both literature and music is maintained by the example of great\nmasters in both arts. Very touching dramatic expression can be combined\nwith decorative symmetry of versification when the artist happens to\npossess both the decorative and dramatic gifts, and to have cultivated\nboth hand in hand. Shakespeare and Shelley, for instance, far from being\nhampered by the conventional obligation to write their dramas in verse,\nfound it much the easiest and cheapest way of producing them. But if\nShakespeare had been compelled by custom to write entirely in prose, all\nhis ordinary dialogue might have been as good as the first scene of As\nYou Like It; and all his lofty passages as fine as \"What a piece of\nwork is Man!\", thus sparing us a great deal of blank verse in which the\nthought is commonplace, and the expression, though catchingly turned,\nabsurdly pompous. The Cent might either have been a serious drama or\nmight never have been written at all if Shelley had not been allowed to\ncarry off its unreality by Elizabethan versification. Still, both\npoets have achieved many passages in which the decorative and dramatic\nqualities are not only reconciled, but seem to enhance one another to a\npitch otherwise unattainable.\n\nJust so in music. When we find, as in the case of Mozart, a prodigiously\ngifted and arduously trained musician who is also, by a happy accident,\na dramatist comparable to Moliere, the obligation to compose operas in\nversified numbers not only does not embarrass him, but actually saves\nhim trouble and thought. No matter what his dramatic mood may be, he\nexpresses it in exquisite musical verses more easily than a dramatist of\nordinary singleness of talent can express it in prose. Accordingly, he\ntoo, like Shakespeare and Shelley, leaves versified airs, like Dalla sua\npace, or Gluck's Che fare senza Euridice, or Weber's Leise, leise, which\nare as dramatic from the first note to the last as the untrammelled\nthemes of The Ring. In consequence, it used to be professorially\ndemanded that all dramatic music should present the same double aspect.\nThe demand was unreasonable, since symmetrical versification is no merit\nin dramatic music: one might as well stipulate that a dinner fork should\nbe constructed so as to serve also as a tablecloth. It was an ignorant\ndemand too, because it is not true that the composers of these\nexceptional examples were always, or even often, able to combine\ndramatic expression with symmetrical versification. Side by side\nwith Dalla sua pace we have Il mio tesoro and Non mi dir, in which\nexquisitely expressive opening phrases lead to decorative passages which\nare as grotesque from the dramatic point of view as the music which\nAlberic sings when he is slipping and sneezing in the Rhine mud is from\nthe decorative point of view. Further, there is to be considered the\nmass of shapeless \"dry recitative\" which separates these symmetrical\nnumbers, and which might have been raised to considerable dramatic and\nmusical importance had it been incorporated into a continuous musical\nfabric by thematic treatment. Finally, Mozart's most dramatic finales\nand concerted numbers are more or less in sonata form, like symphonic\nmovements, and must therefore be classed as musical prose. And sonata\nform dictates repetitions and recapitulations from which the perfectly\nunconventional form adopted by Wagner is free. On the whole, there is\nmore scope for both repetition and convention in the old form than in\nthe new; and the poorer a composer's musical gift is, the surer he is to\nresort to the eighteenth century patterns to eke out his invention.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NINETEENTH CENTURY\n\nWhen Wagner was born in 1813, music had newly become the most\nastonishing, the most fascinating, the most miraculous art in the world.\nMozart's Don Giovanni had made all musical Europe conscious of the\nenchantments of the modern orchestra and of the perfect adaptability of\nmusic to the subtlest needs of the dramatist. Beethoven had shown how\nthose inarticulate mood-poems which surge through men who have, like\nhimself, no exceptional command of words, can be written down in music\nas symphonies. Not that Mozart and Beethoven invented these applications\nof their art; but they were the first whose works made it clear that the\ndramatic and subjective powers of sound were enthralling enough to stand\nby themselves quite apart from the decorative musical structures of\nwhich they had hitherto been a mere feature. After the finales in Figaro\nand Don Giovanni, the possibility of the modern music drama lay bare.\nAfter the symphonies of Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that\nlies too deep for words does not lie too deep for music, and that\nthe vicissitudes of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest\naspiration, can make symphonies without the aid of dance tunes. As much,\nperhaps, will be claimed for the preludes and fugues of Bach; but\nBach's method was unattainable: his compositions were wonderful webs\nof exquisitely beautiful Gothic traceries in sound, quite beyond all\nordinary human talent. Beethoven's far blunter craft was thoroughly\npopular and practicable: not to save his soul could he have drawn one\nlong Gothic line in sound as Bach could, much less have woven several\nof them together with so apt a harmony that even when the composer is\nunmoved its progressions saturate themselves with the emotion which (as\nmodern critics are a little apt to forget) springs as warmly from our\ndelicately touched admiration as from our sympathies, and sometimes\nmakes us give a composer credit for pathetic intentions which he does\nnot entertain, just as a boy imagines a treasure of tenderness and noble\nwisdom in the beauty of a woman. Besides, Bach set comic dialogue to\nmusic exactly as he set the recitatives of the Passion, there being for\nhim, apparently, only one recitative possible, and that the musically\nbest. He reserved the expression of his merry mood for the regular\nset numbers in which he could make one of his wonderful contrapuntal\ntraceries of pure ornament with the requisite gaiety of line and\nmovement. Beethoven bowed to no ideal of beauty: he only sought the\nexpression for his feeling. To him a joke was a joke; and if it sounded\nfunny in music he was satisfied. Until the old habit of judging all\nmusic by its decorative symmetry had worn out, musicians were shocked by\nhis symphonies, and, misunderstanding his integrity, openly questioned\nhis sanity. But to those who were not looking for pretty new sound\npatterns, but were longing for the expression of their moods in music,\nhe achieved revelation, because, being single in his aim to express his\nown moods, he anticipated with revolutionary courage and frankness all\nthe moods of the rising generations of the nineteenth century.\n\nThe result was inevitable. In the nineteenth century it was no longer\nnecessary to be a born pattern designer in sound to be a composer.\nOne had but to be a dramatist or a poet completely susceptible to\nthe dramatic and descriptive powers of sound. A race of literary and\ntheatrical musicians appeared; and Meyerbeer, the first of them, made\nan extraordinary impression. The frankly delirious description of his\nRobert the Devil in Balzac's short story entitled Gambra, and Goethe's\nastonishingly mistaken notion that he could have composed music for\nFaust, show how completely the enchantments of the new dramatic music\nupset the judgment of artists of eminent discernment. Meyerbeer was,\npeople said (old gentlemen still say so in Paris), the successor of\nBeethoven: he was, if a less perfect musician than Mozart, a profounder\ngenius. Above all, he was original and daring. Wagner himself raved\nabout the duet in the fourth act of Les Huguenots as wildly as anyone.\n\nYet all this effect of originality and profundity was produced by a\nquite limited talent for turning striking phrases, exploiting certain\ncurious and rather catching rhythms and modulations, and devising\nsuggestive or eccentric instrumentation. On its decorative side, it was\nthe same phenomenon in music as the Baroque school in architecture: an\nenergetic struggle to enliven organic decay by mechanical oddities and\nnovelties. Meyerbeer was no symphonist. He could not apply the thematic\nsystem to his striking phrases, and so had to cobble them into metric\npatterns in the old style; and as he was no \"absolute musician\" either,\nhe hardly got his metric patterns beyond mere quadrille tunes, which\nwere either wholly undistinguished, or else made remarkable by certain\nbrusqueries which, in the true rococo manner, owed their singularity to\ntheir senselessness. He could produce neither a thorough music drama\nnor a charming opera. But with all this, and worse, Meyerbeer had some\ngenuine dramatic energy, and even passion; and sometimes rose to the\noccasion in a manner which, whilst the imagination of his contemporaries\nremained on fire with the novelties of dramatic music, led them to\noverrate him with an extravagance which provoked Wagner to conduct a\nlong critical campaign against his leadership. Thirty years ago this\ncampaign was mentably ascribed to the professional jealousy of a\ndisappointed rival. Nowadays young people cannot understand how anyone\ncould ever have taken Meyerbeer's influence seriously. Those who\nremember how his reputation stood half a century ago, and who realize\nwhat a nothoroughfare the path he opened proved to be, even to himself,\nknow how inevitable and how impersonal Wagner's attack was.\n\nWagner was the literary musician par excellence. He could not, like\nMozart and Beethoven, produce decorative tone structures independently\nof any dramatic or poetic subject matter, because, that craft being\nno longer necessary for his purpose, he did not cultivate it. As\nShakespeare, compared with Tennyson, appears to have an exclusively\ndramatic talent, so exactly does Wagner compared with Mendelssohn.\nOn the other hand, he had not to go to third rate literary hacks for\n\"librettos\" to set to music: he produced his own dramatic poems, thus\ngiving dramatic integrity to opera, and making symphony articulate. A\nBeethoven symphony (except the articulate part of the ninth) expresses\nnoble feeling, but not thought: it has moods, but no ideas. Wagner added\nthought and produced the music drama. Mozart's loftiest opera, his Ring,\nso to speak, The Magic Flute, has a libretto which, though none the\nworse for seeming, like The Rhine Gold, the merest Christmas tomfoolery\nto shallow spectators, is the product of a talent immeasurably inferior\nto Mozart's own. The libretto of Don Giovanni is coarse and trivial:\nits transfiguration by Mozart's music may be a marvel; but nobody will\nventure to contend that such transfigurations, however seductive, can\nbe as satisfactory as tone poetry or drama in which the musician and\nthe poet are at the same level. Here, then, we have the simple secret of\nWagner's preemminence as a dramatic musician. He wrote the poems as well\nas composed the music of his \"stage festival plays,\" as he called them.\n\nUp to a certain point in his career Wagner paid the penalty of\nundertaking two arts instead of one. Mozart had his trade as a musician\nat his fingers' ends when he was twenty, because he had served an\narduous apprenticeship to that trade and no other. Wagner was very far\nfrom having attained equal mastery at thirty-five: indeed he himself has\ntold us that not until he had passed the age at which Mozart died did he\ncompose with that complete spontaneity of musical expression which can\nonly be attained by winning entire freedom from all preoccupation with\nthe difficulties of technical processes. But when that time came, he was\nnot only a consummate musician, like Mozart, but a dramatic poet and a\ncritical and philosophical essayist, exercising a considerable influence\non his century. The sign of this consummation was his ability at last to\nplay with his art, and thus to add to his already famous achievements in\nsentimental drama that lighthearted art of comedy of which the greatest\nmasters, like Moliere and Mozart, are so much rarer than the tragedians\nand sentimentalists. It was then that he composed the first two acts of\nSiegfried, and later on The Mastersingers, a professedly comedic work,\nand a quite Mozartian garden of melody, hardly credible as the work of\nthe straining artifices of Tanehauser. Only, as no man ever learns to do\none thing by doing something else, however closely allied the two things\nmay be, Wagner still produced no music independently of his poems. The\noverture to The Mastersingers is delightful when you know what it is\nall about; but only those to whom it came as a concert piece without any\nsuch clue, and who judged its reckless counterpoint by the standard of\nBach and of Mozart's Magic Flute overture, can realize how atrocious\nit used to sound to musicians of the old school. When I first heard it,\nwith the clear march of the polyphony in Bach's B minor Mass fresh in my\nmemory, I confess I thought that the parts had got dislocated, and that\nsome of the band were half a bar behind the others. Perhaps they were;\nbut now that I am familiar with the work, and with Wagner's harmony, I\ncan still quite understand certain passages producing that effect organ\nadmirer of Bach even when performed with perfect accuracy.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE\n\nThe success of Wagner has been so prodigious that to his dazzled\ndisciples it seems that the age of what he called \"absolute\" music\nmust be at an end, and the musical future destined to be an exclusively\nWagnerian one inaugurated at Bayreuth. All great geniuses produce this\nillusion. Wagner did not begin a movement: he consummated it. He was the\nsummit of the nineteenth century school of dramatic music in the same\nsense as Mozart was the summit (the word is Gounod's) of the eighteenth\ncentury school. And those who attempt to carry on his Bayreuth tradition\nwill assuredly share the fate of the forgotten purveyors of second-hand\nMozart a hundred years ago. As to the expected supersession of absolute\nmusic, it is sufficient to point to the fact that Germany produced two\nabsolute musicians of the first class during Wagner's lifetime: one, the\ngreatly gifted Goetz, who died young; the other, Brahms, whose absolute\nmusical endowment was as extraordinary as his thought was commonplace.\nWagner had for him the contempt of the original thinker for the man of\nsecond-hand ideas, and of the strenuously dramatic musician for mere\nbrute musical faculty; but though his contempt was perhaps deserved by\nthe Triumphlieds, and Schicksalslieds, and Elegies and Requiems in\nwhich Brahms took his brains so seriously, nobody can listen to Brahms'\nnatural utterance of the richest absolute music, especially in his\nchamber compositions, without rejoicing in his amazing gift. A reaction\nto absolute music, starting partly from Brahms, and partly from such\nrevivals of medieval music as those of De Lange in Holland and Mr.\nArnold Dolmetsch in England, is both likely and promising; whereas there\nis no more hope in attempts to out-Wagner Wagner in music drama than\nthere was in the old attempts--or for the matter of that, the new\nones--to make Handel the starting point of a great school of oratorio.\n\n\n\n\nBAYREUTH\n\nWhen the Bayreuth Festival Playhouse was at last completed, and opened\nin 1876 with the first performance of The Ring, European society was\ncompelled to admit that Wagner was \"a success.\" Royal personages,\ndetesting his music, sat out the performances in the row of boxes set\napart for princes. They all complimented him on the astonishing \"push\"\nwith which, in the teeth of all obstacles, he had turned a fabulous and\nvisionary project into a concrete commercial reality, patronized by\nthe public at a pound a head. It is as well to know that these\ncongratulations had no other effect upon Wagner than to open his eyes\nto the fact that the Bayreuth experiment, as an attempt to evade the\nordinary social and commercial conditions of theatrical enterprise,\nwas a failure. His own account of it contrasts the reality with his\nintentions in a vein which would be bitter if it were not so humorous.\nThe precautions taken to keep the seats out of the hands of the\nfrivolous public and in the hands of earnest disciples, banded together\nin little Wagner Societies throughout Europe, had ended in their\nforestalling by ticket speculators and their sale to just the sort of\nidle globe-trotting tourists against whom the temple was to have been\nstrictly closed. The money, supposed to be contributed by the faithful,\nwas begged by energetic subscription-hunting ladies from people who must\nhave had the most grotesque misconceptions of the composer's aims--among\nothers, the Khedive of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey!\n\nThe only change that has occurred since then is that subscriptions are\nno longer needed; for the Festival Playhouse apparently pays its own way\nnow, and is commercially on the same footing as any other theatre. The\nonly qualification required from the visitor is money. A Londoner spends\ntwenty pounds on a visit: a native Bayreuther spends one pound. In\neither case \"the Folk,\" on whose behalf Wagner turned out in 1849,\nare effectually excluded; and the Festival Playhouse must therefore be\nclassed as infinitely less Wagnerian in its character than Hampton Court\nPalace. Nobody knew this better than Wagner; and nothing can be further\noff the mark than to chatter about Bayreuth as if it had succeeded in\nescaping from the conditions of our modern civilization any more than\nthe Grand Opera in Paris or London.\n\nWithin these conditions, however, it effected a new departure in that\nexcellent German institution, the summer theatre. Unlike our opera\nhouses, which are constructed so that the audience may present a\nsplendid pageant to the delighted manager, it is designed to secure\nan uninterrupted view of the stage, and an undisturbed hearing of the\nmusic, to the audience. The dramatic purpose of the performances is\ntaken with entire and elaborate seriousness as the sole purpose of\nthem; and the management is jealous for the reputation of Wagner. The\ncommercial success which has followed this policy shows that the public\nwants summer theatres of the highest class. There is no reason why the\nexperiment should not be tried in England. If our enthusiasm for Handel\ncan support Handel Festivals, laughably dull, stupid and anti-Handelian\nas these choral monstrosities are, as well as annual provincial\nfestivals on the same model, there is no likelihood of a Wagner Festival\nfailing. Suppose, for instance, a Wagner theatre were built at Hampton\nCourt or on Richmond Hill, not to say Margate pier, so that we could\nhave a delightful summer evening holiday, Bayreuth fashion, passing the\nhours between the acts in the park or on the river before sunset, is\nit seriously contended that there would be any lack of visitors? If a\nlittle of the money that is wasted on grand stands, Eiffel towers, and\ndismal Halls by the Sea, all as much tied to brief annual seasons as\nBayreuth, were applied in this way, the profit would be far more certain\nand the social utility prodigiously greater. Any English enthusiasm for\nBayreuth that does not take the form of clamor for a Festival Playhouse\nin England may be set aside as mere pilgrimage mania.\n\nThose who go to Bayreuth never repent it, although the performances\nthere are often far from delectable. The singing is sometimes tolerable,\nand sometimes abominable. Some of the singers are mere animated beer\ncasks, too lazy and conceited to practise the self-control and physical\ntraining that is expected as a matter of course from an acrobat, a\njockey or a pugilist. The women's dresses are prudish and absurd. It\nis true that Kundry no longer wears an early Victorian ball dress with\n\"ruchings,\" and that Fresh has been provided with a quaintly modish copy\nof the flowered gown of Spring in Botticelli's famous picture; but the\nmailclad Brynhild still climbs the mountains with her legs carefully\nhidden in a long white skirt, and looks so exactly like Mrs. Leo Hunter\nas Minerva that it is quite impossible to feel a ray of illusion whilst\nlooking at her. The ideal of womanly beauty aimed at reminds Englishmen\nof the barmaids of the seventies, when the craze for golden hair was\nat its worst. Further, whilst Wagner's stage directions are sometimes\ndisregarded as unintelligently as at Covent Garden, an intolerably\nold-fashioned tradition of half rhetorical, half historical-pictorial\nattitude and gesture prevails. The most striking moments of the drama\nare conceived as tableaux vivants with posed models, instead of as\npassages of action, motion and life.\n\nI need hardly add that the supernatural powers of control attributed\nby credulous pilgrims to Madame Wagner do not exist. Prima donnas and\ntenors are as unmanageable at Bayreuth as anywhere else. Casts are\ncapriciously changed; stage business is insufficiently rehearsed; the\npublic are compelled to listen to a Brynhild or Siegfried of fifty when\nthey have carefully arranged to see one of twenty-five, much as in\nany ordinary opera house. Even the conductors upset the arrangements\noccasionally. On the other hand, if we leave the vagaries of the stars\nout of account, we may safely expect always that in thoroughness of\npreparation of the chief work of the season, in strenuous artistic\npretentiousness, in pious conviction that the work is of such enormous\nimportance as to be worth doing well at all costs, the Bayreuth\nperformances will deserve their reputation. The band is placed out of\nsight of the audience, with the more formidable instruments beneath\nthe stage, so that the singers have not to sing THROUGH the brass. The\neffect is quite perfect.\n\n\n\n\nBAYREUTH IN ENGLAND\n\nI purposely dwell on the faults of Bayreuth in order to show that there\nis no reason in the world why as good and better performances of The\nRing should not be given in England. Wagner's scores are now before the\nworld; and neither his widow nor his son can pretend to handle them with\ngreater authority than any artist who feels the impulse to interpret\nthem. Nobody will ever know what Wagner himself thought of the artists\nwho established the Bayreuth tradition: he was obviously not in a\nposition to criticize them. For instance, had Rubini survived to create\nSiegmund, it is quite certain that we should not have had from Wagner's\npen so amusing and vivid a description as we have of his Ottavio in the\nold Paris days. Wagner was under great obligations to the heroes and\nheroines of 1876; and he naturally said nothing to disparage their\ntriumphs; but there is no reason to believe that all or indeed any of\nthem satisfied him as Schnorr of Carolsfeld satisfied him as Tristan, or\nSchroder Devrient as Fidelio. It is just as likely as not that the\nnext Schnorr or Schroder may arise in England. If that should actually\nhappen, neither of them will need any further authority than their own\ngenius and Wagner's scores for their guidance. Certainly the less their\nspontaneous impulses are sophisticated by the very stagey traditions\nwhich Bayreuth is handing down from the age of Crummles, the better.\n\n\n\n\nWAGNERIAN SINGERS\n\nNo nation need have much difficulty in producing a race of Wagnerian\nsingers. With the single exception of Handel, no composer has written\nmusic so well calculated to make its singers vocal athletes as Wagner.\nAbominably as the Germans sing, it is astonishing how they thrive\nphysically on his leading parts. His secret is the Handelian secret.\nInstead of specializing his vocal parts after the manner of Verdi and\nGounod for high sopranos, screaming tenors, and high baritones with\nan effective compass of about a fifth at the extreme tiptop of their\nranges, and for contraltos with chest registers forced all over their\ncompass in the manner of music hall singers, he employs the entire range\nof the human voice freely, demanding from everybody very nearly two\neffective octaves, so that the voice is well exercised all over, and\none part of it relieves the other healthily and continually. He uses\nextremely high notes very sparingly, and is especially considerate in\nthe matter of instrumental accompaniment. Even when the singer appears\nto have all the thunders of the full orchestra raging against him, a\nglance at the score will show that he is well heard, not because of any\nexceptionally stentorian power in his voice, but because Wagner meant\nhim to be heard and took the greatest care not to overwhelm him. Such\nbrutal opacities of accompaniment as we find in Rossini's Stabat or\nVerdi's Trovatore, where the strings play a rum-tum accompaniment\nwhilst the entire wind band blares away, fortissimo, in unison with the\nunfortunate singer, are never to be found in Wagner's work. Even in an\nordinary opera house, with the orchestra ranged directly between the\nsingers and the audience, his instrumentation is more transparent to\nthe human voice than that of any other composer since Mozart. At the\nBayreuth Buhnenfestspielhaus, with the brass under the stage, it is\nperfectly so.\n\nOn every point, then, a Wagner theatre and Wagner festivals are much\nmore generally practicable than the older and more artificial forms\nof dramatic music. A presentable performance of The Ring is a big\nundertaking only in the sense in which the construction of a railway\nis a big undertaking: that is, it requires plenty of work and plenty of\nprofessional skill; but it does not, like the old operas and oratorios,\nrequire those extraordinary vocal gifts which only a few individuals\nscattered here and there throughout Europe are born with. Singers who\ncould never execute the roulades of Semiramis, Assur, and Arsaces in\nRossini's Semiramide, could sing the parts of Brynhild, Wotan and\nErda without missing a note. Any Englishman can understand this if he\nconsiders for a moment the difference between a Cathedral service and\nan Italian opera at Covent Garden. The service is a much more serious\nmatter than the opera. Yet provincial talent is sufficient for it, if\nthe requisite industry and devotion are forthcoming. Let us admit that\ngeniuses of European celebrity are indispensable at the Opera (though\nI know better, having seen lusty troopers and porters, without art or\nmanners, accepted by fashion as principal tenors at that institution\nduring the long interval between Mario and Jean de Reszke); but let us\nremember that Bayreuth has recruited its Parsifals from the peasantry,\nand that the artisans of a village in the Bavarian Alps are capable of a\nfamous and elaborate Passion Play, and then consider whether England is\nso poor in talent that its amateurs must journey to the centre of Europe\nto witness a Wagner Festival.\n\nThe truth is, there is nothing wrong with England except the wealth\nwhich attracts teachers of singing to her shores in sufficient numbers\nto extinguish the voices of all natives who have any talent as singers.\nOur salvation must come from the class that is too poor to have lessons.","title":"The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":41012}