For an event to be great, two things must be united--the lofty
sentiment of those who accomplish it, and the lofty sentiment of those
who witness it. No event is great in itself, even though it be the
disappearance of whole constellations, the destruction of several
nations, the establishment of vast empires, or the prosecution of wars
at the cost of enormous forces: over things of this sort the breath of
history blows as if they were flocks of wool. But it often happens,
too, that a man of might strikes a blow which falls without effect
upon a stubborn stone; a short, sharp report is heard, and all is
over. History is able to record little or nothing of such abortive
efforts. Hence the anxiety which every one must feel who, observing
the approach of an event, wonders whether those about to witness it
will be worthy of it. This reciprocity between an act and its
reception is always taken into account when anything great or small is
to be accomplished; and he who would give anything away must see to it
that he find recipients who will do justice to the meaning of his
gift. This is why even the work of a great man is not necessarily
great when it is short, abortive, or fruitless; for at the moment when
he performed it he must have failed to perceive that it was really
necessary; he must have been careless in his aim, and he cannot have
chosen and fixed upon the time with sufficient caution. Chance thus
became his master; for there is a very intimate relation between
greatness and the instinct which discerns the proper moment at which
to act.
We therefore leave it to those who doubt Wagner's power of discerning
the proper time for action, to be concerned and anxious as to whether
what is now taking place in Bayreuth is really opportune and
necessary. To us who are more confident, it is clear that he believes
as strongly in the greatness of his feat as in the greatness of
feeling in those who are to witness it. Be their number great or
small, therefore, all those who inspire this faith in Wagner should
feel extremely honoured; for that it was not inspired by everybody, or
by the whole age, or even by the whole German people, as they are now
constituted, he himself told us in his dedicatory address of the 22nd
of May 1872, and not one amongst us could, with any show of
conviction, assure him of the contrary. "I had only you to turn to,"
he said, "when I sought those who I thought would be in sympathy with
my plans,--you who are the most personal friends of my own particular
art, my work and activity: only you could I invite to help me in my
work, that it might be presented pure and whole to those who manifest
a genuine interest in my art, despite the fact that it has hitherto
made its appeal to them only in a disfigured and adulterated form."
It is certain that in Bayreuth even the spectator is a spectacle worth
seeing. If the spirit of some observant sage were to return, after the
absence of a century, and were to compare the most remarkable
movements in the present world of culture, he would find much to
interest him there. Like one swimming in a lake, who encounters a
current of warm water issuing from a hot spring, in Bayreuth he would
certainly feel as though he had suddenly plunged into a more temperate
element, and would tell himself that this must rise out of a distant
and deeper source: the surrounding mass of water, which at all events
is more common in origin, does not account for it. In this way, all
those who assist at the Bayreuth festival will seem like men out of
season; their _raison-d'être_ and the forces which would seem to account
for them are elsewhere, and their home is not in the present age. I
realise ever more clearly that the scholar, in so far as he is
entirely the man of his own day, can only be accessible to all that
Wagner does and thinks by means of parody,--and since everything is
parodied nowadays, he will even get the event of Bayreuth reproduced
for him, through the very un-magic lanterns of our facetious
art-critics. And one ought to be thankful if they stop at parody; for
by means of it a spirit of aloofness and animosity finds a vent which
might otherwise hit upon a less desirable mode of expression. Now, the
observant sage already mentioned could not remain blind to this
unusual sharpness and tension of contrasts. They who hold by gradual
development as a kind of moral law must be somewhat shocked at the
sight of one who, in the course of a single lifetime, succeeds in
producing something absolutely new. Being dawdlers themselves, and
insisting upon slowness as a principle, they are very naturally vexed
by one who strides rapidly ahead, and they wonder how on earth he does
it. No omens, no periods of transition, and no concessions preceded
the enterprise at Bayreuth; no one except Wagner knew either the goal
or the long road that was to lead to it. In the realm of art it
signifies, so to speak, the first circumnavigation of the world, and
by this voyage not only was there discovered an apparently new art,
but Art itself. In view of this, all modern arts, as arts of luxury
which have degenerated through having been insulated, have become
almost worthless. And the same applies to the nebulous and
inconsistent reminiscences of a genuine art, which we as modern
Europeans derive from the Greeks; let them rest in peace, unless they
are now able to shine of their own accord in the light of a new
interpretation. The last hour has come for a good many things; this
new art is a clairvoyante that sees ruin approaching--not for art
alone. Her warning voice must strike the whole of our prevailing
civilisation with terror the instant the laughter which its parodies
have provoked subsides. Let it laugh and enjoy itself for yet a while
longer!
And as for us, the disciples of this revived art, we shall have time
and inclination for thoughtfulness, deep thoughtfulness. All the talk
and noise about art which has been made by civilisation hitherto must
seem like shameless obtrusiveness; everything makes silence a duty
with us--the quinquennial silence of the Pythagoreans. Which of us has
not soiled his hands and heart in the disgusting idolatry of modern
culture? Which of us can exist without the waters of purification? Who
does not hear the voice which cries, "Be silent and cleansed"? Be
silent and cleansed! Only the merit of being included among those who
give ear to this voice will grant even us the _lofty_ look necessary to
view the event at Bayreuth; and only upon this look depends the _great
future_ of the event.
When on that dismal and cloudy day in May 1872, after the foundation
stone had been laid on the height of Bayreuth, amid torrents of rain,
and while Wagner was driving back to the town with a small party of
us, he was exceptionally silent, and there was that indescribable look
in his eyes as of one who has turned his gaze deeply inwards. The day
happened to be the first of his sixtieth year, and his whole past now
appeared as but a long preparation for this great moment. It is almost
a recognised fact that in times of exceptional danger, or at all
decisive and culminating points in their lives, men see the remotest
and most recent events of their career with singular vividness, and in
one rapid inward glance obtain a sort of panorama of a whole span of
years in which every event is faithfully depicted. What, for instance,
must Alexander the Great have seen in that instant when he caused Asia
and Europe to be drunk out of the same goblet? But what went through
Wagner's mind on that day--how he became what he is, and what he will
be--we only can imagine who are nearest to him, and can follow him, up
to a certain point, in his self-examination; but through his eyes
alone is it possible for us to understand his grand work, and by the
help of this understanding vouch for its fruitfulness.