I shall only give two instances showing how utterly the sentiment of
our time has been perverted, and how completely unconscious the
present age is of this perversion. Formerly financiers were looked
down upon with honest scorn, even though they were recognised as
needful; for it was generally admitted that every society must have
its viscera. Now, however, they are the ruling power in the soul of
modern humanity, for they constitute the most covetous portion
thereof. In former times people were warned especially against taking
the day or the moment too seriously: the nil admirari was recommended
and the care of things eternal. Now there is but one kind of
seriousness left in the modern mind, and it is limited to the news
brought by the newspaper and the telegraph. Improve each shining hour,
turn it to some account and judge it as quickly as possible!--one
would think modern men had but one virtue left--presence of mind.
Unfortunately, it much more closely resembles the omnipresence of
disgusting and insatiable cupidity, and spying inquisitiveness become
universal. For the question is whether mind is present at all
to-day;--but we shall leave this problem for future judges to solve;
they, at least, are bound to pass modern men through a sieve. But that
this age is vulgar, even we can see now, and it is so because it
reveres precisely what nobler ages contemned. If, therefore, it loots
all the treasures of bygone wit and wisdom, and struts about in this
richest of rich garments, it only proves its sinister consciousness of
its own vulgarity in so doing; for it does not don this garb for
warmth, but merely in order to mystify its surroundings. The desire to
dissemble and to conceal himself seems stronger than the need of
protection from the cold in modern man. Thus scholars and philosophers
of the age do not have recourse to Indian and Greek wisdom in order to
become wise and peaceful: the only purpose of their work seems to be
to earn them a fictitious reputation for learning in their own time.
The naturalists endeavour to classify the animal outbreaks of
violence, ruse and revenge, in the present relations between nations
and individual men, as immutable laws of nature. Historians are
anxiously engaged in proving that every age has its own particular
right and special conditions,-- with the view of preparing the
groundwork of an apology for the day that is to come, when our
generation will be called to judgment. The science of government, of
race, of commerce, and of jurisprudence, all have that preparatorily
apologetic character now; yea, it even seems as though the small
amount of intellect which still remains active to-day, and is not used
up by the great mechanism of gain and power, has as its sole task the
defending--and excusing of the present
Against what accusers? one asks, surprised.
Against its own bad conscience.
And at this point we plainly discern the task assigned to modern
art--that of stupefying or intoxicating, of lulling to sleep or
bewildering. By hook or by crook to make conscience unconscious! To
assist the modern soul over the sensation of guilt, not to lead it
back to innocence! And this for the space of moments only! To defend
men against themselves, that their inmost heart may be silenced, that
they may turn a deaf ear to its voice! The souls of those few who
really feel the utter ignominy of this mission and its terrible
humiliation of art, must be filled to the brim with sorrow and pity,
but also with a new and overpowering yearning. He who would fain
emancipate art, and reinstall its sanctity, now desecrated, must first
have freed himself from all contact with modern souls; only as an
innocent being himself can he hope to discover the innocence of art,
for he must be ready to perform the stupendous tasks of
self-purification and self-consecration. If he succeeded, if he were
ever able to address men from out his enfranchised soul and by means
of his emancipated art, he would then find himself exposed to the
greatest of dangers and involved in the most appalling of struggles.
Man would prefer to tear him and his art to pieces, rather than
acknowledge that he must die of shame in presence of them. It is just
possible that the emancipation of art is the only ray of hope
illuminating the future, an event intended only for a few isolated
souls, while the many remain satisfied to gaze into the flickering and
smoking flame of their art and can endure to do so. For they do not
want to be enlightened, but dazzled. They rather hate light --more
particularly when it is thrown on themselves.
That is why they evade the new messenger of light; but he follows
them--the love which gave him birth compels him to follow them and to
reduce them to submission. "Ye must go through my mysteries," he cries
to them; "ye need to be purified and shaken by them. Dare to submit to
this for your own salvation, and abandon the gloomily lighted corner
of life and nature which alone seems familiar to you. I lead you into
a kingdom which is also real, and when I lead you out of my cell into
your daylight, ye will be able to judge which life is more real,
which, in fact, is day and which night. Nature is much richer, more
powerful, more blessed and more terrible below the surface; ye cannot
divine this from the way in which ye live. O that ye yourselves could
learn to become natural again, and then suffer yourselves to be
transformed through nature, and into her, by the charm of my ardour
and love!"
It is the voice of Wagner's art which thus appeals to men. And that
we, the children of a wretched age, should be the first to hear it,
shows how deserving of pity this age must be: it shows, moreover, that
real music is of a piece with fate and primitive law; for it is quite
impossible to attribute its presence amongst us precisely at the
present time to empty and meaningless chance. Had Wagner been an
accident, he would certainly have been crushed by the superior
strength of the other elements in the midst of which he was placed,
out in the coming of Wagner there seems to have been a necessity which
both justifies it and makes it glorious. Observed from its earliest
beginnings, the development of his art constitutes a most magnificent
spectacle, and--even though it was attended with great
suffering--reason, law, and intention mark its course throughout.
Under the charm of such a spectacle the observer will be led to take
pleasure even in this painful development itself, and will regard it
as fortunate. He will see how everything necessarily contributes to
the welfare and benefit of talent and a nature foreordained, however
severe the trials may be through which it may have to pass. He will
realise how every danger gives it more heart, and every triumph more
prudence; how it partakes of poison and sorrow and thrives upon them.
The mockery and perversity of the surrounding world only goad and spur
it on the more. Should it happen to go astray, it but returns from its
wanderings and exile loaded with the most precious spoil; should it
chance to slumber, "it does but recoup its strength." It tempers the
body itself and makes it tougher; it does not consume life, however
long it lives; it rules over man like a pinioned passion, and allows
him to fly just in the nick of time, when his foot has grown weary in
the sand or has been lacerated by the stones on his way. It can do
nought else but impart; every one must share in its work, and it is no
stinted giver. When it is repulsed it is but more prodigal in its
gifts; ill used by those it favours, it does but reward them with the
richest treasures it possesses,--and, according to the oldest and most
recent experience, its favoured ones have never been quite worthy of
its gifts. That is why the nature foreordained, through which music
expresses itself to this world of appearance, is one of the most
mysterious things under the sun--an abyss in which strength and
goodness lie united, a bridge between self and non-self. Who would
undertake to name the object of its existence with any
certainty?--even supposing the sort of purpose which it would be
likely to have could be divined at all. But a most blessed foreboding
leads one to ask whether it is possible for the grandest things to
exist for the purpose of the meanest, the greatest talent for the
benefit of the smallest, the loftiest virtue and holiness for the sake
of the defective and faulty? Should real music make itself heard,
because mankind of all creatures least deserves to hear it, though it
perhaps need it most? If one ponder over the transcendental and
wonderful character of this possibility, and turn from these
considerations to look back on life, a light will then be seen to
ascend, however dark and misty it may have seemed a moment before.