Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/209

 It will be seen that my position is far removed from that of some critics who praise Wagner for having written "intimate" dramas. That is magnificent praise, but a grave illusion. It is true that these dramas are by no means overloaded with intrigue, and it is true that metaphysical clouds mingle with the development of their ingenuous plots. But a thing may be not overloaded with matter, and yet be materialistic, and what is cloudy is not necessarily "intimate," though many people do not distinguish as they should these two ideas. To my taste these dark portions of the theme make for superfœtation and cumbrousness. And when, at the theatre, I feel the pleasure which can, apart from the music, attach to Wagnerian spectacle, it is because I lose sight of them, I sweep them off my horizon, and am stupid enough to confine myself to what would have amused me when I was ten years old.

"Sir," said a Marseilles soap-boiler who was sitting next me at Bayreuth, "Why do the gods die at the end of the Tetralogy? I have never been able to understand that. You who appear to have studied these things will no doubt explain." "Sir," I replied, "my studies, which have borne chiefly on German philosophy and the exegeses of Wagner's disciples would I think enable me to give you a dozen explanations, if you were to address your kind question to me while holding a pistol at my head. As, however, you approach me in a milder manner, permit me to give no answer at all. That will be treating you as I treat myself, for I did not come here to yawn."

The soap boiler reminds me of an American who "had his leg pulled" by some young fellows, though they were Wagnerians of the strictest sect; it was