_RICHARD WAGNER_
We all have met with people who, without being degenerates to any
great extent repeat stories of their own invention so persistently,
that they end by believing in them. In this kind of folly, if folly
it be, there is a great deal of method when indulged in by people
who are anxious, for some reason or another, that their views should
_nolens volens_ be accepted by others. When one comes to deal with the
intellectual development of a nation or a race, and wishes to prove
certain forms of progress or retrogression, it is half the battle
to bring your opponent to believe in the existence of some special,
well-defined psychological phenomenon or social tendency, and to give
it a high-sounding name. What would astrology have been without the
horoscope, or alchemy without the philosopher’s stone? What would
modern statecraft be without such terms as “foreign competition” and
“international jealousy”? What would German socialism be without the
term “revolutionary socialism”? What would bi-metallism be without
the phrase, “the stability of the currency”? And what would Nordau’s
theory of degeneration be without the “mystic movement”?
He takes for granted that there is such a thing as mysticism, as well
as that it constitutes a movement, and then endeavours to explain
everything as partaking of or resulting from it. According to him,
Wagnerism is the reappearance in Germany of that romanticism which
originated there, and afterwards travelled through France and England.
It reappeared, according to him, through Wagner’s degeneration, and
spread in virtue of the degeneration of his contemporaries. He says
that he finds in Wagner a greater abundance of degeneration than in
all the other degenerates put together. “The stigmata of his morbid
condition,” he says, “are united in him in the most complete and most
luxuriant development.”
This is a bold assertion, and will appear bolder yet to any one who
has read his chapter in _The Richard Wagner Cult_. Wagner’s dislike
of the Jews, which Nordau calls anti-semitism, and his views on
social questions, which our alienist calls Anarchism, are pointed
out as unfailing stigmata of degeneration. One of the methods of our
alienist is to notice and make much of certain extreme opinions in
people who are actually made, or who have made themselves, intensely
objectionable, and then to point out that similar opinions and ideas
are present in the mind of some celebrity, and then to draw the
conclusion that this celebrity must be on the road to madness. Either
he does not see himself, or he trusts his readers will not see, that
by such methods every man in the world might be proved to some extent
deranged. He forgets that exaggerated virtues become vices, and that
some of the most prominent men in the world have had idiosyncrasies
to which they have even given considerable play without at all coming
within the range of degeneration.
The anti-semitism in Germany, which Nordau ascribes to
degeneration—probably with the approval of the majority of Jews—in that
country, as well as in Russia, France, and the United States, springs
from causes so patent, that no man who aspires to be considered an
acute observer of his time should ignore them.
Let us instance Russia first—a country where the latest wave of
anti-semitism first took a violent form. Can any one who is acquainted
with the typical financial history of the Russian villages wonder
that the Jews in Russia should be looked upon as a scourge? What has
happened in thousands of such villages is this. An energetic, clever
Jew settles amongst the Russian _moujiks_, who combine thriftlessness
and love of an easy life with many of the good qualities and innocence
of primitive races. The Jew is bent on making money, and caring little
about the opinion the community may form of him, and too brave to fear
their enmity, he has no hesitation in taking up any kind of business,
however unpopular it may render him. He willingly becomes a publican,
a pawnbroker, a land-grabber, and, in combination with other Jews, a
speculator and cornerer. His attention to business, his self-denial,
his hardheartedness to his customers, his knowledge of the tricks of
trades and finance, the ready support he gets from his co-religionists
in other districts in carrying out his purposes, however derogatory
they may be to the community—all this soon renders him the master of
the situation. The stranger, who at first in such a friendly spirit
invited his customer to drink his _vodka_ and borrow his money, is soon
transformed into a harsh tyrant who, by hook or by crook, came into
possession of all the belongings of the villagers, and calmly makes
use of their destitution to extort from them their future earnings.
The Jews, as a rule, on the one hand, and the Russians on the other,
form diametrically opposite views on this social phenomenon. The Jews
say, and Nordau evidently sides with them, that this successful village
tyrant has done nothing to deserve blame. He has only been more frugal,
more thrifty, and more intelligent than the Russians, who were bound by
their inferior character to go to the wall; and that if Russia hates
the Jews, it is with that hatred against successful men common in
human failures.
The ruined Russian peasants simply know that the Jew who came among
them is rich and they are poor, that what used to be their possessions
form his wealth, and that the means he has used to obtain it would not
have been used by them under any circumstances. They think they have
been robbed, and that they and their descendants would be robbed by
the Jew and his descendants if they cannot be freed from him. Hence
anti-semitism in Russia.
Nordau has no right to call the anti-semitists degenerate, even
though they be wrong in their logic, because he is wrong himself, and
he cannot point to ruined homes and wrecked lives as a substantial
foundation for his opinion.
In Germany the Jews play the same part, though under modified
conditions. Though bad, German laws and German officialism are better
than those of Russia, and the German people do not so easily fall a
prey to the strong-minded Jew. But, on the other hand, the Jews make
themselves obnoxious in other ways, both in Germany and Austria. Here
they act everywhere as trade-spoilers. The Jew undersells everybody. He
stops short of nothing, save breaking the law, to extend his business.
He is obsequious to those in power and in wealth, but relentlessly
hard to competitors and to creditors. Many of them will take the
greatest possible advantage of other people’s, especially Christians’,
misfortunes, and will gain their end by deliberately wounding other
people’s feelings. It is the Jews who generally pay the lowest wages,
and who are found in the ranks of the sweaters.
We hasten to state that there are in Germany a great many exceptions to
the types here referred to. But either they are not numerous enough, or
the Jew must possess some inability to show his better qualities, for
no one acquainted with the circumstances in Germany would deny that the
Jew-haters there look upon their enemies in exactly the light we have
described.
But this is not all. Accusations are levelled against the Jews which
are partly untrue, or else vastly exaggerated, and those who make them
should be called upon to prove their statements. Whether they may be
able to do this or not, the fact remains that the Jew-hating Germans
believe that the Jews have formed one vast conspiracy, the object of
which is to secure for the Jews large advantages at the expense of the
Christians. It is alleged that the methods employed are as follows: The
Jews are supposed to meet in secret conclave, in which those of them
who desire to accomplish any special aim state it to their brethren,
who then combine in assisting them. Such aims may be the possession
of a house or a shop in the hands of a Christian, the ruin of some
obnoxious competitor, the miscarriage of some public auction of goods
coveted by some Jew, and so on. With such ideas prevailing, how is it
possible to ascribe Jew hatred to degeneracy? Such logic is all the
more surprising as it remains a palpable fact that the fortunes of the
Jewish houses are growing apace, that Jews seem to succeed no matter
what they undertake, that they certainly are more charitable to their
co-religionists than to Christians, and for that matter than Christians
are to Christians, while at the same time poverty and misery are on the
increase among the Christian masses.
Nordau does a bad service to the Jews of Germany when he attempts
to lay the blame for anti-semitism exclusively at the door of the
Christians and calls them degenerates, while he entirely exempts the
Jews. This partiality, coupled with his contempt for the masses and his
belief in government by the more strong-minded men, points to a future
state in Germany in which the Jews should be the ruling aristocracy.
His unfairness thus, instead of abating the persecution against the
Jews, might easily be construed into an excuse for a more bitter
anti-semitism.
This error of his is due to his besetting habit of taking his
postulates from doubtful authorities and of drawing illogical
conclusions. It is a common thing for men who have been successful
in one branch of knowledge, and who are regarded as authorities in
a specialty by others, to jump at rash conclusions with regard to
subjects on which authorities differ or do not exist. This is exactly
what Nordau does when he comes to consider facts which cannot be
rightly understood without a clear insight into sociology and other
social sciences. He then evinces impossible opinions, and gives us to
understand that he has a ready-made scheme for reconstructing society
on a new and perfect plan.
It is not difficult to see what this plan is. It is quasi-Collectivism
and Communism. He wishes the State to become the universal heir
of all fortunes and the universal benefactor. The absurdity and
impracticability of this scheme—which, by the way, is always the very
one that first enters the head of a young student who tackles social
science for the first time—are obvious. As however he does not insist
upon his scheme in his volume _Degeneration_, it would be out of place
to explain its hollowness here. We have referred to it simply to show
that his superficiality regarding the anti-semitic question is not
incidental. It will be evident to anybody who tackles this question
with an unprejudiced mind that the Christians in Russia and Germany are
utterly at fault when they believe that they can escape from their
troubles by persecuting Jews, and also that the Jews are utterly at
fault when they attribute anti-semitism to the jealousy and wickedness
of the Christians. Both these parties, as well as Nordau himself,
allow their feelings instead of their intelligence to determine these
questions. But they are not necessarily degenerate.
The true explanation of the imbroglio is as follows: The Jewish race,
which might have acquired a few unpleasant characteristics by no fault
of their own but through a cruel and unjust persecution for centuries,
is a highly-gifted one, distinguishing itself by strong-mindedness,
great will-power, remarkable powers of endurance, morality, and
singleness of purpose. Deprived, in a great number of countries
of social rights and the privileges of citizenship, they have for
centuries found only one way open to them by which they could attain to
independence, security, and consideration—the accumulation of wealth.
In modern times, when social institutions and laws tend to render
wealth almost omnipotent, its acquisition has become to this people of
greater importance than ever. Success in a business, however small,
may mean millions in the future, while failure may result in life-long
misery. Consequently, the Jews apply themselves to their trades or
professions with an energy and assiduity such as few races can command.
They therefore represent a power in the development of humanity
which is bound to produce far-reaching effects. Whether these will
constitute a blessing or a curse to the nations among whom the Jews
live and work depends entirely on the institutions and the laws of
those countries. If these are such as to render the oppression of the
poor, the workers, the borrowers, the tenants—in fact, all the sections
of society on which the Jews now batten,—a condition for the thriving
of the capitalists, the employers, the lenders, the tenants, and the
fortunate classes in general—if the laws are of this description, then
the Jews will be conspicuous as the oppressors of others. But if, on
the contrary, the laws and institutions of the countries are such as to
render the success of the upper classes and leaders of trade, industry,
and finance dependent on the welfare of the workers, then the Jews will
be the most liberal lenders, the most generous employers, and the most
accommodating landlords. In fact, the question resolves itself simply
into one of demand and supply; as long as there is a greater demand
for Jews’ services than the Jews are able to supply, the latter will
dominate; but when there are more services offered on the part of the
Jews than the people can avail themselves of, these can dictate terms
to the Jews. And this relation of demand and supply depends on laws and
institutions.
Even if Nordau’s prejudices prevented him from taking this view of
the anti-semitic question—which is not only the correct one but which
greatly facilitates the solution of the question, and thus would
prevent the disgraceful persecution which in many countries threatens
to become more serious—he might have found, by simply looking at the
actualities, in the different countries that anti-semitism prevails
in an inverse ratio to good government. He could not have asked for
a better proof of the fact that laws and institutions are at fault
and not the Jews or the Christians. To take only the two extremes:
in Russia, where the Government, from the people’s point of view,
is probably the worst in Europe, anti-semitism is most vehement; in
England, where the Government is more influenced by the consideration
of the good of the people than in any other country, there is scarcely
any animosity against the Jews, and this in spite of the efforts of
certain politicians to promote it.
The reception of Dr. Stöcker, when he attempted to address a public
meeting in London in favour of anti-semitism, would have convinced
Nordau, had he been present, what a poor chance anti-semitism has
in a country where the working classes are free to follow those
instincts which Nordau fears so much. We may relate that hardly had
the proceedings begun when the hall was filled by labourers, who,
contrary to their habit on such occasions, had not changed their dress,
and who hooted Dr. Stöcker, stormed the platform, overpowered the
anti-semitists, and cleared the hall.
In face of the fact that anti-semitic questions turn so entirely on
prejudices and mistakes, one cannot surely accuse Wagner of madness
because he sided with what may be called a national party, and approved
of a movement the object of which was to stay the progressive influence
of an alien race over the destiny of the Fatherland.
In several places in his work Nordau insists upon considering the
anarchist tendencies of our age as among the stigmata of degeneration.
If he were right, we should be face to face with a calamity likely to
end in the brutalization or the annihilation of our race. For Anarchism
in some form of other is certainly spreading rapidly. That there is
Anarchism and Anarchism seems of little importance to our alienist
in his eagerness to draw his preconceived conclusions. He reasons
as usual. Starting from the hypothesis that some of the criminal
Anarchists were, to some extent, mentally deranged and morally weak,
he arrives at the conclusion that Wagner was a degenerate, because he
shared to some extent with the Anarchists the hatred of our present
social system and of the injurious effects it produces on the masses of
the people.
Though Nordau dwells far more lengthily on poetry, and art, and cognate
subjects than on the graver question of Anarchism, there is no point on
which it behoves us better to set him and his readers right than that
of the relation between Anarchism and degeneration.
The Anarchist is not a cause. He is an effect. There is a feeling in
the consciousness of almost every human being, be he a believer in a
divine religion or in Nordau’s religion of humanity, that our race is
destined to a high degree of development, and to a far larger sphere
of happiness than now falls to the lot of most of us. This yearning
for happiness, for elevation, is not only a feeling but a conviction
consequent upon our knowledge of the past stages of the development of
man.
There was a time when fervent religious beliefs induced patience and
resignation under suffering, and when our future destiny was left in
the hands of Providence. But the French encyclopædists, and after them
the modern scientists, have done their best to undermine this belief
and to show us that the destiny of future generations will largely
depend upon us and themselves, that science is placing in our hands an
ever-growing control over the forces of nature, and that if humanity
suffers it is because the present generation has not the moral courage
to throw off religious scruples and boldly shape their own destiny.
These doctrines, in unison with the general progressive spirit of
the age, led to revolutions and political reforms. In the absence
of a providence the nations shifted their faith to constitutional
governments. But the new faith did not last long. The more democratic
the governments were the more they applied the principles of
Collectivism—they yielded to those instincts which Nordau calls the
social instincts. Under the pretext of exercising paternal kindness
towards the people, the governments demanded paternal rights.
Communistic and socialistic ideas spread among the masses, who, well
aware that a providence without power would be no providence at all,
wanted to render the State omnipotent. When however socialistic
features were introduced into the constitutions, matters did not mend,
but the freedom of the individual was more and more infringed.
When detailed schemes of further socialistic development were made
public, a great many freedom-loving men and women beheld with terror
that the chief cause of the favour with which the progressing socialism
was regarded was to be found in the plan of complete subjection of the
individual under government.
This discovery naturally caused a reaction in favour of liberty. Those
who became Anarchists felt keenly the claws of the State upon them, and
they foresaw that more socialism would aggravate their grievances. They
took for granted that humanity had now tried all forms of government
and that they had all failed, and that the salvation of the race could
only be found in absolute personal freedom.
The first extreme Russian Nihilists paved the way for the Anarchist
movement in Europe. They, like their first followers in France, had
only one idea, that of destroying at all costs the present order of
things, and thus clearing the ground for a new system to grow up
free from the tyranny of governments, aristocracies, militarism,
landlordism, and capitalism.
They saw that an immense mass of poor, hard-working, honest people
with but a small chance of happiness for themselves, but imbued with a
strong desire to see the whole of humanity happy, were oppressed by a
small number of selfish people who arrogated to themselves the lion’s
share of the good things of life. They found that this band of selfish
people attained to their immense power by a social system of slow and
gradual growth. Tracing all the troubles to the few egotists whom they
regarded as criminals, they imagined that by destroying them and the
system, the unselfish and humanitarian aspirations of the masses would
blossom forth free and unvitiated.
The Anarchists were thus the backbone of the religion of humanity, only
their faith was stronger than that of Nordau, for they were willing to
sacrifice all, including life, for the good of the race.
If these people were, and are, degenerate, then every mistake in
reasoning is a sign of degeneration, and faith in humanity and its
destiny is the beginning of madness.
When Nordau designates Wagner as an Anarchist, he evidently ignores
the fact that there are two kinds of Anarchists, the violent ones just
described, and the moderate or constitutional ones. The latter call
themselves simply Anarchists. Their numbers are growing rapidly in
France, as well as in England, and in both these countries Nordau would
be surprised at their moderation and common sense. The movement they
represent is a reaction against the socialistic tendencies, and their
programme is not violence and destruction, but the gradual abolition of
all harmful and useless legislation. It is true that so far they have
no precise policy. But such special measures as are advocated—partly
in France, partly in England, and partly in the United States—seem to
be founded on clear and thorough reasoning, and when their leading
principle is compared with the shallow chatter of Socialists and
Communists of every school it appears as wisdom itself.
What all these people believe, what they long for, and what they hope
for, is exactly what Wagner believed, longed for, and hoped for. He
saw in Philistinism, in official tyranny, in police government, and in
legal trammels standing in the way of trades, industries, and arts,
so many impediments to the realization of the best instincts and the
highest aspirations of humanity. Whatever opinions he held, they can
only be judged by the few exasperated exclamations he gave vent to with
regard to the corruption of modern society. It is not likely that he,
with such immense works on hand, should have given sufficient attention
to social questions to allow him to express himself in learned terms.
But what he said and wrote on the subject shows clearly that the
foundation of his social views was trust in humanity, in the sanctity
of nature, and in the ennobling power of liberty. Can any one with a
true love of art imagine an artist without such a creed?
What was more natural than that, fêted and praised as he was, he should
have a good opinion of his own talent and consider himself a great man?
If for this he deserved to be suspected of megalomania, what are we to
say about other celebrities, mediocrities, and nonentities, who imagine
themselves demi-gods because they happen to be the sons of their
fathers, to be born in purple, or to have a title attached to their
name?
Nordau is extremely hard on those who have sung the praises of Wagner,
and insinuates that they have been actuated by base motives when they
have not been absolutely degenerated. According to him, admiration
for Wagner’s works is a sure sign of mental unsoundness. And yet this
same Nordau finds reasons for praising Wagner’s genius which a host of
his panegyrists have overlooked. He says: “Wagner, as a dramatist is
really an historical painter of the highest rank.... This [a fresco
painter] he is in a degree never yet attained by any other dramatic
author in the whole world of literature. Every action embodies itself
for him in a series of most imposing pictures, which, when they are
composed as Wagner has seen them with his inner eye, must overwhelm
and enrapture the beholder. The reception of the guests in the hall of
Wartburg; the arrival and departure of Lohengrin in the boat drawn by
the swan; the gambols of the Rhine maidens in the river; the defiling
of the gods over the rainbow-bridge towards the castle of Asgard;
the bursting of the moonlight into Hunding’s hut; the ride of the
Walküre over the battle-field; Brunhilde in the circle of fire; the
final scene in ‘Götterdämmerung,’ where Brunhilde flings herself on to
her horse and leaps into the midst of the funeral pyre, while Hagan
throws himself into the surging Rhine, and the heavens are aflame with
the glow from the burning palace of the gods; the love-feast of the
knights in the castle of the Grail; the obsequies of Titurel and the
healing of Amfortas—these are pictures to which nothing in art hitherto
approaches.”
It is strange that Nordau in his love for authorities should quote
Nietzsche—a German author whom, in another part of his book, he makes
out to be a hopeless degenerate and charlatan—in support of his views
of Wagner! But Nietzsche has written a book called _Der Fall Wagner_,
and that suffices. This Nietzsche calls Wagner a comedian, but Nordau
insists upon his being a painter, and that “if he had been a healthy
genius, endowed with intellectual equilibrium, that is what he would
undoubtedly have become. His inner vision would have forced the brush
into his hand, and would have constrained him to use it on canvas by
means of colour.”
When Nordau says a painter, he evidently restricts the meaning of the
word to its narrowest sense, and makes it difficult to at all class a
man who, like Wagner, evolved and produced pictures of such grandeur
and such beauty as those our alienist so well describes. The fact that
the artist uses actual perspective, real draperies, living people,
actual fire, that he selects his own light, and personally arranges
this mass of objects so as to exactly reproduce the daring conception
of his mind—all this should surely not be cited as so many proofs
of the unhealthiness of his genius. Would he have been a greater, a
sounder genius, had his ability been restricted to sketching and
colouring his conceptions on cardboard or canvas? Should then a
painter’s genius be confined to the production of pictures suitable
only to decorate Philistine houses and official galleries? Because
Nordau’s pedantic tendencies have formed such a Philistine idea about
the art of painting, is it right to deny true genius to a man who has
produced unapproachable pictures on a colossal scale, not by the means
of brushes and pigments, but by materials infinitely more difficult to
handle?
But these masterpieces of painting do not alone bear witness to
Wagner’s powers. His paintings are not fixed; they are movable. They
represent actually an enchanting succession of pictures. The true
genius _à la_ Nordau gives us the pictures of figures in motion that
never move, and tires us with a Quintus Curtius suspended in mid-air
half way down a chasm, until we wish him at the bottom of it. Such a
moving picture of Wagner’s is not thrust upon us suddenly in the manner
of gallery pictures, but is presented to us as the fit illustration
of a beautiful poem, and often as the climax of a series of other
pictures which explain it, relieve it, and work up our emotions for its
reception.
To this must be added that the same painter-genius, the same dramatist,
the same poet, has created the wondrous and enchanting music which
accompanies the poem and the pictures. And because he has done all
this, because he has not followed the routine of other German painters,
because he has dared to and succeeded in transporting his audiences
into the highest possible region of imagination, and given them a
glimpse of real creative powers, he is to be classed as a degenerate;
to rank among those of whom humanity is ashamed, and whose degraded
state is to warn us of the coming decay of our race.
Can any one with a grain of humour read Nordau’s attacks on Wagner
without imagining an irascible toy-terrier barking at the moon?
Nordau probably feels that Wagner’s anti-semitism, his Anarchism,
and his ability to create transcendentally beautiful pictures are
stigmata which hardly any of his readers would accept as such, and
consequently feels impelled to make much of what it pleases him to
call Wagner’s eroticism. Here, as everywhere in his book, in order
to impress his readers he counts on the mystical effect which the
use of a high-sounding scientific word generally produces upon
unscientific readers. A favourite expression of his, when speaking of
some psychological phenomenon, is that science knows all about it,
and he calls it megalomania, graphomania, echolalia, or some such
name. With people who have only a superficial knowledge of science,
and who stand in awe of its achievements, such nouns stand for a
special definite thing, thoroughly investigated and explained. They
do not know that these scientific names have been invented, not in
order to designate something real and palpable, but simply for the
purpose of bringing order into an arbitrary classification, invented
so that the exchange of ideas may be facilitated on the subject thus
treated. Such scientific terms might even be classed among mystical
symbols, in so far as they often stand for something of which hardly
anything is known, but at the same time serve the same useful end
as algebraical figures. Psychologists are prone to speak of a man’s
consciousness, though scarcely two scientific men would agree as to
what it is. But this does not prevent them from dividing consciousness
up into divisions and sub-divisions, all with their special names, in
order to be able to express their ideas in words. The unscientific
reader should bear in mind that consciousness has never been under
the microscope, or in the crucible, and that the classification of
the scientists has no counterpart in consciousness itself, and that
this remains the impalpable and indivisible _Ego_, with its infinite
number of attributes inseparably commingled. All the different states,
conditions, faculties, perfections, and defects of the _Ego_ are
of course known only by the results they produce in the physical
world, and it is by these results that they have been classified.
It is evident that such methods of classification should leave an
immense margin for those who wish, or feel impelled by their own
idiosyncrasies, to misuse scientific terms designating psychological
phenomena.
Nordau indulges in this misuse of scientific terms to the fullest
extent, in a way not to be easily discovered by the non-scientific
reader. The word “eroticism” used by him so frequently, with all the
pomposity of a scientific term, is coined from the word “erotic,” a
literary term which again is derived, as we all know, from Eros, the
Greek god of love. It is an adjective which means pertaining to or
expressive of love-passion. Such an adjective necessarily finds an
enormously wide application, considering that love in one sense is the
leading principle in organic creation, and, in a more psychological
sense, the motive power in the human drama. We may say that we
ourselves, the outcome of love, regulate our whole life, and sometimes
base our hopes of a future state on love. Consequently there is hardly
anything in our lives that is not covered by the adjective “erotic.”
The alienists having adopted the word “eroticism” in order to designate
a state of mind which certain actions reveal to them, and which state
of mind, when its existence is corroborated by other facts, may be
considered as a disease, it is evident that, while they may apply the
word “eroticism” to almost anything in the organic world and in human
society, it is better for their purpose to apply it only to a certain
form of a diseased mind. While a strictly logical and careful alienist
might deem it irrational and confusing to use the term “eroticism,” or
even the adjective “erotic,” outside a clearly defined case of mental
disease, it cannot be considered absolutely wrong to apply such terms
whenever the love-passion is in question, even a love-passion of a most
legitimate kind.
We shall now show how Nordau manages to slip over the border
within which scientific terms should be used, and applies them
indiscriminately to everything; and how he, in this manner, tries to
establish that Wagner suffers from erotic madness, because he looks
upon love as one of the chief motors in the human drama and the tree of
knowledge for good or evil.
Nordau, in a flippant criticism, which he endeavours to render funny,
of the behaviour of Wagner’s characters on the stage, forgets his
self-criticism to such an extent as to liken them to mad tom-cats—a
simile which probably no sane man would accept as true. Having once
conceived the idea of mad tom-cats, it at once becomes an obsession
in his mind, and suggests presentations of real cases of erotic fury.
He consequently, according to his habit, takes for granted that the
actors on the stage must necessarily represent the exact state of mind
of the author, and cries out that this state of the author’s mind
(which he has persuaded himself is that of a mad tom-cat) is well known
to science, and is called sadism. Then, with a regret at having to
touch upon subjects in order to make his readers understand Wagner’s
real mental condition, he gives a disgusting example of a maniac whose
erotic madness has brought him below the level of the brute.
This is a fair sample of Nordau’s logic. For the sake of clearness,
we recapitulate the logical _tour de force_ he has been compelled
to exercise in order to arrive at such an absurdity: Wagner, like
all poets and dramatists before him, creates a love scene. Love is
an erotic emotion. Eroticism is a disease of the mind. Tom-cats are
erotically influenced. The characters on the stage remind Nordau of
tom-cats. The obsession of a “tom-cat in convulsions over a root of
valerian” suggests a raving madman. Consequently Wagner is mad.
Such is the use a scientist is tempted to make of his science when he
throws self-criticism overboard.
When Nordau says of Wagner that he has been all his life an erotic, he
is fair enough to add in parentheses, “in a psychiatric sense.” But
this is not enough. The word “psychiatric” is a strictly scientific
word, not to be found in any ordinary English dictionary; and the
ordinary reader might easily conclude that, instead of removing
Wagner’s eroticism into the deep recesses of his soul, it might have
been used by the author, as so many scientific words have been used, in
order to aggravate his charge.
In order to justify his opinion with regard to Wagner’s erotic madness,
he says: “The most ordinary incitements, even those farthest removed
from the province of sexual instincts, never fail to awaken in his
consciousness voluptuous images of an erotic character.” Why “sexual
instincts”? Why not love-instincts, an expression which had so much
better fitted in with the scenes Wagner represents? But, as it suits
Nordau’s purpose to keep his reader’s mind upon love in its lowest,
most animal form, we shall let it pass. We must however express our
astonishment at the example he gives in order to show how incitements,
“far removed from the province of sexual instincts,” caused Wagner’s
mind to revert to voluptuous images. The “farthest removed incitements”
which Nordau quotes is the description by Wagner of a ballet—a _pas de
trois_—evidently intended to represent the blending of the beautiful
with love, to give Wagner’s own words, “love and life, the joy and
wooing of art.” What on earth, then, would more arouse such eroticism
that might be found in a man than a ballet representing love and
life? And this especially when we consider the modern freedom with
regard to the costume of ballet girls. In order to show what Nordau
considers to be the outcome of erotic madness in Wagner’s choregraphic
representation of love, life, and art, we give _in extenso_ the passage
from _Art-Work of the Future_, to which he refers:
“In the contemplation of this ravishing dance of the most genuine
and noblest muses of the artistic man, we now see the three arm in
arm lovingly entwined up to their necks, then this, then that one,
detaching herself from the entwinement, as if to display to the others
her beautiful form in complete separation, touching the hands of the
others only with the extreme tips of her fingers; now the one, entwined
by a backward glance at the twin forms of her closely entwined sisters,
bending towards them; then two, carried away by the allurements of the
one, greeting her in homage; finally all, in close embrace, breast to
breast, limb to limb, in an ardent kiss of love, coalescing in one
blissfully living shape. This is the love and life, the joy and wooing
of art,” etc.
When Nordau wishes to traduce the love scenes in Wagner’s operas into
arguments of the musician’s erotic madness, he forgets many things. He
forgets what he himself has given as a test of a sound mind, namely,
the ability to look after one’s own business. Even if Wagner had
produced scenes on his stage of an utterly corrupt character in order
to gain money and popularity, he having succeeded completely in such
objects could not possibly be called mad by a critic who has made
material success in life a test for sound-mindedness, and who declares
the belief in personal responsibility reaching beyond the grave to
be a sign of madness. But he also forgets, what is more important,
that there is no line of demarcation drawn to indicate how far the
representation of human passions may be carried on the stage.
Even Nordau does not seem to have discovered an authority on this
subject. He himself will not serve as an authority, because he has
shown himself too apt to fall into the error of newspaper critics,
that of judging a work or a piece, not according to its merits, but
according to the author who has produced it. He would praise in Goethe
what he would condemn in Wagner. If we were to indiscriminately ask
people how far we may go in representing human passion on the stage,
we should get a mass of replies all differing according to the bias of
the respondents. The Ultramontane abbé, the zealous Methodist, would
differ enormously from the Bohemian artist; the prudish old maid would
differ from the poet. Nay, even two artists, both painters of the nude,
or two ballet girls appearing in the same costume, might hold almost
opposite opinions on this subject. How then shall we judge? By leaving
out of court all the extremists—those who object to theatres, ballets,
and nature in art—as well as those who would clamour for indecent
and obscene representations, we might considerably narrow the ground
for inquiry, and elicit certain rules likely to meet the suffrage of
the majority within these limits. It might be argued that emotions,
playing by far the most important _rôle_ in the human drama, and lying
as they do at the root of all our actions, educational agencies,
and amusements, ought to be appealed to by the arts. Also that art,
in affording us opportunities of giving expression to our emotions,
elevates and ennobles our lives: consequently, that the passive,
objective contemplation of human emotions which the stage affords us
helps us to study our own emotions and to bring them into harmony with
our noblest aspirations, our future happiness, our judgment, and our
will. In order to accomplish their mission, such representations should
be as true to life as possible, whether they be beautiful or not. On
this plea, it would be legitimate to represent on the stage erotic
emotions in the full strength in which we meet with them in reality
among sound-minded people. A good deal of exaggeration may be permitted
to the actor as he is under the difficulty of having to convey by
actions, gestures, or facial expression a distinct representation of
emotions which may rage in the consciousness of a human being without
betraying themselves in physical signs.
From this it must be concluded that the purity of the stage depends
more on what is acted than how it is acted. The author who does not
wish to desecrate the drama is therefore bound to represent emotions
which are the outcome of natural life, and acted upon by incidents such
as we see around us and to avoid the representation of, even if he
cannot avoid the reference to, emotions which spring from a diseased
mind or a morbid moral state.
Love, being an emotion to which every sound-minded being may be
subject, there would be no objection to represent it in the most
intense manner on the stage so long as we understand under the name
of love that strong degree of affection which sometimes people of the
opposite sex may conceive for each other apart from sexual emotions.
What makes Nordau’s reasoning plausible is that he does not admit that
this kind of love exists. He distinguishes only two degrees, or two
categories, of love, comradeship or friendship on the one hand, and
the animal instinct on the other. But no one who has gone through life
with open eyes can possibly deny the reality of what we here, for want
of a better expression, would call pure love. Everywhere we meet with
manifestations of it. Even young children, who might have no idea of
sexual emotion, often love each other with a genuine passion which
sometimes lasts through life. Adults may be so absorbed in love for
each other as to prefer death to separation, and yet never experience
any sexual emotion in each other’s company. Men and women lovers who
have been separated have wasted away from sheer love of each other,
and yet been remarkably chaste in character. In the English-speaking
countries, where the relations between the sexes are free and natural,
we find any number of proofs of the reality of pure love. Those cases
alone which have ended tragically, and therefore come before the
public, more than suffice to prove it. Even in countries like France,
for example, where the sexual instincts are apt to become morbid from
the one-sided education of the young, it is not difficult to find
examples of pure love. It is even to be found where least expected, as,
for instance, between a licentious man and a fallen woman. It is true
that when pure love runs its usual course it gets, so to say, inflamed
by animal passion, but this is generally the case only as a result of
the demonstrations by which pure love tries to manifest itself. It may
also be true that there exists a mysterious, that is to say a so far
unexplained, connection between the purest love and sexual instinct
even in loving couples to whom sexuality may be an abomination. But
all this does not disprove that, speaking from a practical and ethical
point of view, there is such an emotion as pure love, and that this
emotion is a powerful motor in the human drama.
If it then be a fact that this yearning to love and to be loved with
a pure love exists, and ought to exist, in rational human beings,
and that in running its natural course it will manifest itself
in demonstrations extremely likely to rouse animal passions, the
question arises how far a love scene on the stage may display those
demonstrations which, while they are the only possible means of
expressing pure love, at the same time suggest sexual emotions.
Here then is the point where the difference will arise, and where we
may well be careful whose decision we accept. Can we do better than
Wagner did—leave the audience to decide?
Wagner’s German audiences, described by Nordau as including wives and
daughters, have, to his great bewilderment, given the verdict in favour
of Wagner’s most passionate scenes. “How unperverted,” Nordau cries
out, “must wives and maidens be, when they are in a state of mind to
witness these pieces without blushing crimson, and sinking to the earth
for shame!” No. They have not blushed in following calmly and serenely
the objective representations of passions which by nature have been
implanted in every breast. The very vehemence, the very naturalness of
the scenes inspire that awe and reverence which great natural forces
always do, and the young girl in the audience does not for a moment
revert to any impure representations or animal promptings which might
have come within her experience, because she is æsthetically and not
sexually excited. But if Nordau could watch her when she reads the
above quoted passage in his book, he would see her blush deeply, not at
the memory of Wagner’s scenes, but at the feeling of having the first
seed of degeneration sown in her heart.
Among the phrases used by Nordau in order to inculcate his readers with
the idea that Wagner, instead of being the very essence of an artist,
one of the greatest practically creative geniuses of the world, is a
mere erotic maniac, is this one—“all his ideas revolve about woman.”
While this phrase may lead the unwary reader astray, it throws a vivid
light on the extent to which Nordau’s opinion with regard to the
relation of the sexes has been influenced by his continental bias. This
ought to be made clear to his readers. Such expressions, if of any use
at all in Nordau’s reasoning, pre-suppose that it is quite an unusual
thing for the ideas of poets, dramatists, and writers of fiction to
revolve about woman. For our alienist does not refer to Wagner’s
private life. He is speaking only of Wagner the author. The actual
fact, of course, is that love and women have from times immemorial been
the subject of legends, fairy tales, troubadour songs, poems, romances,
novels, and dramas. Thus, according to the gospel of our alienist, all
the past and present poetical authors of the world must have been, and
are, “subject to erotic madness,” like Wagner.
There are, of course, men who, like Faust, devote their lives to
intellectual pursuits and expend all their energy in forcing nature to
yield up her secrets. But such men are not only exceptions—they may be
looked upon as degenerates. This is what Faust at last discovered. He
recognised that life was essentially emotional, and that by having
crushed out his emotional nature he had failed to live his life.
Whether Goethe intended to impart the lesson his _Faust_ teaches us may
be doubtful, but we can thus read it: we may suppress our emotional
nature for a long time, but it will one day claim its rights, and,
in its explosive escape from unnatural bondage, avenge itself on the
suppressor, and hurl him to perdition. The emotions, Faust regrets, are
all those inspired by women.
But the great majority of men do not suppress the emotions inspired by
women, but, on the contrary, allow their whole lives to be influenced
by them. To find confirmation of this fact in countries like France
and Germany might not be so easy as in the English-speaking countries.
Wherever the sexes are separated in youth, and where conventional
marriages are the rule, the erotic impulses become over-stimulated and
lead to the excitement of animal passion. The love of the beautiful,
all the æsthetic aspirations, the yearning for the society of women,
the love of excitement, the chivalrous leanings, and the craving for
pure love—all these are thrown as so much fuel into the furnace of
sexual love. It is then that the struggle arises between the terrible
demoniac love and pure love—a struggle so frequently depicted in
Wagner’s operas and which determines the lives of so many men on the
continent.
Part of the struggle of the continental man is to avoid the influence
of women altogether, or else to look upon them after the manner of the
Mahommedans. In countries therefore where pure love is left but little
or no scope, the influence of women is not very marked, and certainly
not acknowledged, because for a man to acknowledge it would be to avow
himself an “erotic madman.”
To understand the immense influence which a woman exercises over man’s
destiny and how closely men’s minds “revolve about women,” we must
study the English-speaking countries where pure love has, if not free
scope, freer scope than anywhere else, and where few healthy-minded men
are ashamed to avow the value they place upon woman, her love, and her
influence.
Despite the fact that Englishmen do not display towards women of
all classes that engaging politeness which favourably distinguishes
Frenchmen, a stranger who visits England cannot fail soon to perceive
in what high estimation woman is held. Her name is seldom taken in
vain. There is no trace of that gross satire upon women which so
often disfigures continental prints; she may be represented as sharp,
worldly, extravagant, but rarely as immoral, unfaithful, or ugly. Some
of the lower-class papers are strongly influenced by French views, but
they never indulge in adaptations without some modification, and such
papers as have been started in order to emulate the fast journals of
Paris have always been extremely short-lived.
The same respect for women is manifest in fiction as well as on the
stage. Here again in consequence of French influence we meet with
women who have sinned, and women with a past, but they never play such
degraded parts as they often do in French novels and plays. Ladies
are allowed an extensive liberty, and they are rarely insulted; and
obtain, even under trying circumstances, a respectful treatment at the
hands of the lowest class of labourers. We have unfortunately amongst
us ruffians who beat their wives, but in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred these are drunken and debauched human failures. The average
working man treats his wife and his daughter with as much consideration
as a nobleman could his, and their home is kept morally pure and as
comfortable for the women as his resources allow. He is not ashamed to
carry parcels, burdens, the children, or to perambulate the baby in
public places in order to spare his wife the trouble.
The men most reluctantly suspect a woman of immorality, and generally
not until there seems a strong case against her. Indecent words and
allusions are entirely excluded in the presence of ladies, and if a
woman in her innocence inadvertently makes a risky remark, it passes
unheeded and without producing a smile.
The average Englishman’s life brings him into constant contact with
women, and he is perfectly aware that he owes to them much that is
bright and happy in his existence. Already as a child he is the trusted
protector of his sisters, and often the cavalier of their friends.
Early in life he loves some young woman, and his long courtship is to
him a happy time. When he works hard, when he risks his life on the sea
or in dangerous climes, it is generally with a view to marrying the
girl he loves. When he is married, he wishes to succeed that he may
gain his wife’s approval, beautify her home, and make her life happy;
while at the same time he never remains insensible to the admiration
of other women. While his wife is yet young, his daughters grow up and
become important features in his life and his happiness.
It may therefore be said of the men of the English-speaking countries
that their “ideas revolve about women,” and it will be difficult to
persuade us Englishmen that respect, admiration, and love for women
are the signs of a degenerate mind. Coleridge well expresses the
English feeling—a feeling which, under circumstances similar to those
prevailing in England, would be universal:
“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.”
Wagner’s music, which may be said to have been the delight of millions
of people, is not approved of by Nordau. He condemns it on the usual
ground that it is novel, and that it differs from the standards
accepted before Wagner. According to him, it is the music of an unsound
mind, because it contains no distinct ideas in the shape of melodies.
He objects to the _Leit-motiv_ and to the unending melody, but it is
difficult to harmonize what he says against the one with what he says
against the other. Speaking of the _Leit-motiv_, he says: “To express
ideas is not the function of music. Language provides for that as
completely as could be desired. When the word is accompanied by song
or orchestra, it is not to make it more definite, but to reinforce it
by the intervention of emotion. Music is a kind of sounding-board in
which the word has to awake something like an echo from the infinite.”
Later on he says about melody: “It is a regular grouping of notes in a
highly expressive series of tones. Melody in music corresponds to what
in language is a logically constructed sentence distinctly presenting
an idea, and having a clearly marked beginning and ending.”
Music being an art which exclusively appeals to emotion, it is not
surprising that any attempt to measure its value by a reasoning process
should result in utter failure. But this is no excuse for an author to
contradict himself so flatly as Nordau does in the above passages. To
say on one page that “_to express ideas is not the function of music_,”
and on another page to say that melody is indispensable to music,
because it “corresponds to a logically constructed sentence _distinctly
presenting an idea_.” Again he says: “Melody may be said to be an
effort to say something definite,” and how can this harmonize with
the other mission of music: “to awake something like an echo from the
infinite.” The latter expression is not only a true definition of the
mission of music, but also an exact description of the aim of Wagner’s
music.
Nordau feels that his scientific reasoning about music will affect no
one who has heard the music of Wagner, and that those who admire it
will be slow to believe that an unsound mind could have accomplished
such complicated, intricate, and complete work. To prepare his reader’s
mind for his rash conclusion, he once more goes to the lunatic asylum
for his arguments, in order to show that a man may be a lunatic and yet
be a good musician. But here again he is strangely blind to the fact
that such arguments tell directly against his theory. He cites cases of
lunatics who “improvised on the piano,” who “sang very beautiful airs
and at the same time improvised two different themes on the piano...
who composed very beautiful, new, and melodious tunes.”
The remarkable thing about the music of his maniacs is that it is tuny
and melodious, and consequently the only rational music, according to
Nordau, while Wagner’s music is condemned by him, and Wagner himself is
held up as a lunatic because his music is not like that of acknowledged
lunatics! It stands to reason that a weak mind could follow and repeat
a style of music which it has heard for years, but that it requires a
strong and sound mind to break a new road in the domain of music with
the full approval of millions of musical people.
Nordau also feels the necessity of backing up his opinion by
authorities. He sees a conclusive proof of Wagner’s inferiority in
the criticism of professional musicians and composers. He might as
well form his opinion of an actress on the criticism of her by her
most dangerous rival. It seems that Hiller and Schumann would not
acknowledge Wagner’s musical endowment, but attributed his success to
the _libretti_ written by himself. Regarding this Nordau exclaims:
“The same old story: musicians regard him as a poet, and poets as a
musician.” This means that our alienist is, or pretends to be, so
utterly innocent of humour and satire as to accept this very common way
of minimizing the talent of a rival as a trustworthy judgment. It is
the commonest thing in the world for a man to deny his rival’s talent
in his own specialty, and then, in order to strengthen the effect of
his opinion and to give it the colour of impartiality, to acknowledge
in him talents outside that specialty. Practical men, when they hear
one musician run down another musician, generally conclude that the
latter has a dangerous talent. Voltaire, in speaking of a writer none
of whose works were in existence, said that he must have been a man of
genius judging from the savage attacks made upon him by another writer.
Hiller and Schumann are the only authorities whom Nordau can point to
in support of his views, and he himself raises some doubts whether
their dislike of Wagner’s music was not due to the difficulty of
immediately appreciating a tendency so novel as Wagner’s. Our alienist
is only able to add that Rubinstein can only make some important
reservations, and that it was some time before Hanslick struck his
colours. In view, then, of the enormous literature that has grown
up around Wagner and Wagnerism, Nordau’s habit of referring to
authorities in this instance simply has the effect of showing that he
stands unsupported in his opinion by all musical authorities. It is
irresistibly comic to notice how Nordau regrets that the brochure—_Der
Fall Wagner_—in which Nietzsche attacks Wagner, is quite as “insanely
delirious” as another brochure written by the same writer twelve years
before in deification of Wagner. Had it not been for this awkward
circumstance, Nordau, it seems, would have been only too glad to exalt
Nietzsche—the man whom in another part of his work he strenuously
endeavours to prove an imbecile—to the rank of an authority. His
amazing lack of logic prevents him from seeing that a certificate of
lunacy issued by a lunatic is really a certificate of sanity, in virtue
of the logical axiom that two negatives are equal to one affirmative.
Such faults and defects as may be found in Wagner’s prose writings have
little importance in relation—and are almost irrelevant—to the question
of his supposed degeneracy. He had to deal with subjects which,
though intensely real to our emotional nature, can only be treated
inadequately in words. Whatever we may think of Wagner’s style, there
can be little doubt that he has succeeded in making himself understood
by a great number of people whose emotional nature sympathizes with
that of Wagner, and whom even Nordau would not undertake to prove to
be mentally deranged or morally degenerate. Wagner’s writings have the
defect, very general among German writers, and conspicuous in Nordau,
of being verbose. They all make us crave for “Der langen Rede, kurzen
Sinn.”
The fundamental idea in Wagner’s great work—_The Art-Work of the
Future_—is that the arts should co-operate, and that each individual
art should attain to its perfection in conjunction with other arts.
Nordau in no way disproves the soundness of this view by saying that
“Goethe’s lyric poetry and the _Divina Commedia_” need no landscape
painting, that “Michael Angelo’s ‘Moses’ would hardly produce a deeper
impression surrounded by dancers and singers,” and that “the ‘Pastoral
Symphony’ does not require a complement of words in order to exercise
its full charm.”
With that logic peculiar to Nordau, he quotes a passage from
Schopenhauer in which this thinker mildly deprecates such co-ordination
of the arts as was to be found in the operas of his time, and our
alienist wishes us to accept this as a proof of insanity in Wagner’s
admiration for the opera. He forgets the important fact that
Wagner’s greatness is proved by the way in which he has succeeded in
obliterating at least the worst defects of the opera as it existed
before him, and that he has rendered it a complete and harmonious
expression of combined and elevated arts. The quoted passage from
Schopenhauer could be no condemnation of Wagner’s operas as it was
written before they saw the light. In the operas, as they used to be,
there was much that tended to disturb the imagination and even to
arouse laughter. The most exasperating incongruities were indulged
in. An exciting hunting chorus would be played and sung while two
rows of lady supers would walk in from each side of the wings in
Indian file, each bearing as a hunting implement a yard-long piece
of wood surmounted by a piece of tin. The impossible dresses, the
demure demeanour, the solemn faces, the absurd lances—carried like
candles in a nuns’ procession—all this clashed so terribly with the
music and the theme as to suggest a burlesque. A band of conspirators
afraid of being detected, yet shouting at the top of their voices some
compromising chorus; a man with a deadly wound rising to his feet and
singing a lively and complicated aria; a messenger in the hottest haste
delivering a message in a slow and long-drawn recitative; an intensely
modern consumptive lady dying amid ancient surroundings, trilling in
her last gasps musical complexities, during a quarter of an hour,
with a marvellously strong and healthy voice—such, and many other
absurdities, disfigured the opera before Wagner and Gounod, and well
deserved the condemnation of Schopenhauer.
Wagner’s assertion that the natural evolution of each art leads to
the surrender of its independence and to its fusion with other arts
is looked upon by Nordau as delirious. To prove this he falls back on
biology, and points out that nature develops from the simple to the
complex, that originally similar parts develop into separate organs
of different structure and independent functions. Why on earth should
there necessarily be an analogy between the growth of plants and
animals, and between the development of the arts? Any other writer who
had been unfortunate enough to indulge in such profound mysticism would
certainly have been condemned by Nordau to the lunatic asylum. Even
if we admit the analogy as permissible, he gains very little by it:
for when he speaks of nature as always proceeding from the simple to
the complex he describes exactly the development of the arts into the
opera—music, poetry, and dancing representing each the simple, and the
opera representing the complex. What would Nordau think of a mad doctor
who based his verdict of insanity on such reasoning?
The attentive student of Nordau’s impeachment of Wagner cannot fail
to see that, despite all his efforts to brand him as a degenerate, he
has only succeeded in throwing the grand power of that genius into
bolder relief. Instead of inducing us to look upon Wagner as a sign
of degeneration, he has impressed us with the fact that Wagner’s work
constitutes an awakening from the slumber in which Philistinism and
conventionalism have so long enwrapped humanity, and opened a new vista
for the ennobling mission of the arts.
While we must reject Nordau’s clinging to that pedantry and
conventionalism which limit the mission of the arts to the production
of isolated pictures for public galleries and the salons of
modern Mæcenases, statues for public places, and compositions of
_Kammer-musik_ for drawing-rooms, we at the same time do not believe
that the opera, even as regenerated by the genius of a Wagner, is
the highest expression of the arts. There will come a day when the
illusions of the stage will be realities, when we shall dispense with
the dusty sceneries, the garish footlights, the painted faces, the
prudish trappings, which go to make up the mirage which heralds an
ideal future. The arts, instead of being relegated to the nursery in
order to make room for science, as Nordau prophesies, will become
its aim. When science has given us health, strength, and beauty, an
extended power over nature’s forces, when it has solved the terrible
social problem on the basis of liberty and progress, then will science
be the handmaiden of the arts. Then will the answer be granted to the
poet’s prayer:
“Oh! for a muse of fire that shall ascend
The highest heaven of invention;
A kingdom for a stage; princes to act;
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!”
The arts, after having demonstrated in the opera their solidarity and
their independence, will leave that artificial shelter and take up
their abode in our homes and in our civic buildings, in our streets,
and in our public places, in our arenas and in our temples.
A new renaissance lies ahead of us, and we are all struggling to reach
it. The man who thinks and writes, the artist who paints or composes,
the peasant at the plough, the miner in the bowels of the earth, all
are contributing to further the advent of a new era when the life,
the work, the pleasure, and the worship of a regenerate race shall be
exalted by the arts, and present a realization of what Wagner dreamed
while he created.