In that Wagner is our master, a
better, stronger, and more profitable master to follow, in spite of his
mistakes, than all the other literary and dramatic authors of his time.
* * * * *
I see that criticism has filled a larger place in these notes than I
meant it to do. But in spite of that, I love _Tristan_; for me and for
others of my time it has long been an intoxicating draught. And it has
never lost anything of its grandeur; the years have left its beauty
untouched, and it is for me the highest point of art reached by anyone
since Beethoven's death.
But as I was listening to it the other evening I could not help
thinking: Ah, Wagner, you will one day go too, and join Gluck and Bach
and Monteverde and Palestrina and all the great souls whose names still
live among men, but whose thoughts are only felt by a handful of the
initiated, who try in vain to revive the past. You, also, are already of
the past, though you were the steady light of our youth, the strong
source of life and death, of desire and renouncement, whence we drew our
moral force and our power of resistance against the world.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141