"[108] He has painted Wagner and his
time delightfully. We all enjoy these little pictures of the Tetralogy,
delicately drawn and worked up by the aid of a
magnifying-glass--pictures of Wagner, languishing and beautiful, in a
mournful salon, and pictures of the athletic meetings of the other
musicians, who were "too robust"! The amusing part is that this piece of
wit has been taken seriously by certain arbiters of elegance, who are
only too happy to be able to run counter to any current opinion,
whatever it may be.
[Footnote 108: F. Nietzsche, _Der Fall Wagner_.]
I do not say that there may not be a decadent side in Wagner, revealing
super-sensitiveness or even hysteria and other modern nervous
affections. And if this side was lacking he would not be representative
of his time, and that is what every great artist ought to be. But there
is certainly something more in him than decadence; and if women and
young men cannot see anything beyond it, it only proves their inability
to get outside themselves. A long time ago Wagner himself complained to
Liszt that neither the public nor artists knew how to listen to or
understand any side of his music but the effeminate side: "They do not
grasp its strength," he said.
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