Part 8

We shall always have to credit Wagner with the fact that in the second half of the nineteenth century he impressed art upon our memory as an important and magnificent thing. True, he did this in his own fashion, and this was not the fashion of upright and far-seeing men.

16.

Wagner versus the cautious, the cold and the contented of the world—in this lies his greatness—he is a stranger to his age—he combats the frivolous and the super-smart—But he also fights the just, the moderate, those who delight in the world (like Goethe), and the mild, the people of charm, the scientific among men—this is the reverse of the medal.

17.

Our youth was up in arms against the soberness of the age. It plunged into the cult of excess, of passion, of ecstasy, and of the blackest and most austere conception of the world.

18.

Wagner pursues one form of madness, the age another form. Both carry on their chase at the same speed, each is as blind and as unjust as the other.

19.

It is very difficult to trace the course of Wagner’s inner development—no trust must be placed in his own description of his soul’s experiences. He writes party-pamphlets for his followers.

20.

It is extremely doubtful whether Wagner is able to bear witness about himself.

21.

There are men who try in vain to make a principle out of themselves. This was the case with Wagner.

22.

Wagner’s obscurity concerning final aims; his non-antique fogginess.

23.

All Wagner’s ideas straightway become manias; he is tyrannised over by them. How can such a man allow himself to be tyrannised over in this way! For instance by his hatred of Jews. He kills his themes like his “ideas,” by means of his violent love of repeating them. The problem of excessive length and breadth; he bores us with his raptures.

24.

“C’est la rage de voulour penser et sentir au delà de sa force” (Doudan). The Wagnerites.

25.

Wagner whose ambition far exceeds his natural gifts, has tried an incalculable number of times to achieve what lay beyond his powers—but it almost makes one shudder to see some one assail with such persistence that which defies conquest—the fate of his constitution.

26.

He is always thinking of the most extreme expression,—in every word. But in the end superlatives begin to pall.

27.

There is something which is in the highest degree suspicious in Wagner, and that is Wagner’s suspicion. It is such a strong trait in him, that on two occasions I doubted whether he were a musician at all.

28.

The proposition: “in the face of perfection there is no salvation save love,”(16) is thoroughly Wagnerian. Profound jealousy of everything great from which he can draw fresh ideas. Hatred of all that which he cannot approach, the Renaissance, French and Greek art in style.

29.