o exaggeration of
Wagner's doctrine and plans. The one truth which emerges and speaks
unequivocally is that Richard, deeply dissatisfied with the theatre of
the day, and tracing its sad degeneracy to the corrupt state of
society, wished to see society upraised, not that men and women might
live more happily, but that a finer, nobler theatre might flourish.
The most magnificent egotist of the century, it seemed to him the
prime concern of mankind that Richard Wagner's works should be
understood and loved. Being an egotist also, if I may say so, on a
national scale, he thought humanity could only be redeemed by German
art. Disregarding the fact that Germany has had no painters, no poet
of the first rank, no genuine dramatist, and that before "our art," as
he persistently calls music, had got a root in Germany, three great
schools had flourished, the English, the Flemish and the
Italian--disregarding all this, he looked for the regeneration of the
human species by means of the efforts of German artists alone. It is
comical, and, I say, very like lunacy. Mr. Ernest Newman will have it
that Wagner's was only a very mediocre intellect. The cold truth is
that only a mighty intellect, gone wrong on one point, could have
evolved the idea of such a new social system. For, mark you, Wagner
propounded no scheme for the regeneration of humanity: he assumed that
it could regenerate itself by wishing, or willing, and that then the
thousand years of peace would commence, with Richard as
conductor-in-chief. He could not see that humanity cannot jump out of
its shadow and regenerate itself, any more than gentlemen of
intelligence gone wrong on one point can see that Bacon could not have
written Shakespeare's plays, or that perpetual motion is a crazy
impossibility.

It is curious to picture the share Richard took in the Dresden ferment
of 1848-49. Of course, all Europe was in a condition of excitement;
and the powers that were got their guns ready, and their men.
Political liberty was the thing aimed at: the "outs" wanted to be in.
Every right-thinking man must be in sympathy with the "outs." The
governments of Europe were in the hands of shameless place-seekers;
the working men, the merchants, all other classes were supposed to
labour and pay taxes for the benefit of these gentry. Money was
squandered on useless court-flummery while men were toiling sixteen
hours a day for bread. The aristocracy were resolved that this state
of affair