red by clumsy, heavy German treatment. Wagner had been to the
opera in Paris and knew his Meyerbeer; but even Wagner could not
distance Meyerbeer. He had not the melodic invention, the orchestral
tact, or the dramatic sense--at that time. Being a born mimicker of
other men, a very German in industry, and a great egotist, he began
casting about for other models. He soon found one, the greatest of all
for his purpose. It was Weber--that same Weber for whose obsequies
Wagner wrote some funeral music, not forgetting to use a theme from the
_Euryanthe_ overture. Weber was to Wagner a veritable Golconda. From
this diamond mine he dug out tons of precious stones; and some of them
he used for _The Flying Dutchman_. We all saw then what a parody on
Weber was this pretentious opera, with its patches of purple, its stale
choruses, its tiresome recitatives. The latter Wagner fondly imagined
were but prolonged melodies. Already in his active, but musically-barren
brain, theories were seething. "How to compose operas without music"
might be the title of all his prose theoretical works. Not having a
tail, this fox, therefore, solemnly argued that tails were useless
appanages. You remember your AEsop! Instead of melodic inspiration,
themes were to be used. Instead of broad, flowing, but intelligible
themes, a mongrel breed of recitative and _parlando_ was to take their
place.

It was all very clever, I grant you, for it threw dust in the public
eye--and the public likes to have its eyes dusted, especially if the
dust is fine and flattering. Wagner proceeded to make it so by labeling
his themes, leading motives. Each one meant something. And the Germans,
the vainest race in Europe, rose like catfish to the bait. Wagner, in
effect, told them that his music required brains--Aha! said the German,
he means _me_; that his music was not cheap, pretty, and sensual, but
spiritual, lofty, ideal--Oho! cried the German, he means _me_ again. I
am ideal. And so the game went merrily on. Being the greatest egotist
that ever lived, Wagner knew that this music could not make its way
without a violent polemic, without extraneous advertising aids. So he
made a big row; became socialist, agitator, exile. He dragged into his
music and the discussion of it, art, politics, literature, philosophy,
and religion. It is a well-known fact that this humbugging comedian had
written the _Ring of the Nibelungs_ before he absorbed the
Schopenhauerian doctrines, and th