h,
for example!); and he will begin to realize how much of our barbarous
Theology and Law the man of the future will do without. Bakoonin, the
Dresden revolutionary leader with whom Wagner went out in 1849, put
forward later on a program, often quoted with foolish horror, for
the abolition of all institutions, religious, political, juridical,
financial, legal, academic, and so on, so as to leave the will of man
free to find its own way. All the loftiest spirits of that time were
burning to raise Man up, to give him self-respect, to shake him out
of his habit of grovelling before the ideals created by his own
imagination, of attributing the good that sprang from the ceaseless
energy of the life within himself to some superior power in the clouds,
and of making a fetish of self-sacrifice to justify his own cowardice.

Farther on in The Ring we shall see the Hero arrive and make an end
of dwarfs, giants, and gods. Meanwhile, let us not forget that godhood
means to Wagner infirmity and compromise, and manhood strength and
integrity. Above all, we must understand--for it is the key to much that
we are to see--that the god, since his desire is toward a higher and
fuller life, must long in his inmost soul for the advent of that greater
power whose first work, though this he does not see as yet, must be his
own undoing.

In the midst of all these far-reaching ideas, it is amusing to find
Wagner still full of his ingrained theatrical professionalism, and
introducing effects which now seem old-fashioned and stagey with as much
energy and earnestness as if they were his loftiest inspirations. When
Wotan wrests the ring from Alberic, the dwarf delivers a lurid and
bloodcurdling stage curse, calling down on its every future possessor
care, fear, and death. The musical phrase accompanying this outburst was
a veritable harmonic and melodic bogey to mid-century ears, though time
has now robbed it of its terrors. It sounds again when Fafnir slays
Fasolt, and on every subsequent occasion when the ring brings death to
its holder. This episode must justify itself purely as a piece of stage
sensationalism. On deeper ground it is superfluous and confusing, as the
ruin to which the pursuit of riches leads needs no curse to explain it;
nor is there any sense in investing Alberic with providential powers in
the matter.

THE VALKYRIES

Before the curtain rises on the Valkyries, let us see what has happened
since it fell on The Rhine G