t chance sentences of Feuerbach aroused in his
seething brain. Feuerbach, however, was sent about his business as
soon as Schopenhauer entered. Wagner immediately wrote
enthusiastically to Liszt, telling how peace and light had come into
his soul; and one might wonder what particular doctrine of the grumpy
old pseudo-philosopher had this remarkable effect. (This is to assume
it to have had the effect. As a bare matter of fact it hadn't.
Wagner's soul knew no peace until he died.) It was the great gospel of
Renunciation. After reading this, in his own way, Wagner realized, if
you please, that both _Tannhaeuser_ and _Lohengrin_ preached the same
doctrine; and one can only retort that, if they preach any doctrine at
all--which they don't, thank heaven!--it is not that. But
Schopenhauerism might easily have ruined _Tristan_--did not ruin it
only because Wagner himself, when writing it, was consumed with a
fervour of passion that is the negation of Schopenhauerism. It is
responsible, however, for many of the _longueurs_ of the _Ring_, as,
for instance, in Act II of the _Valkyrie_, when Wotan stops the action
to give Bruennhilde an elementary lesson in Schopenhauer-cum-Wagner
metaphysics. The funny thing is that Wagner never renounced anything:
to the end he was greedy, avid of life. He might have benefited by a
careful study of Schopenhauer's pungent phrases; but instead of thus
developing his own natural gift in that direction, his sentences
afterwards grew longer and more complicated than ever. His Beethoven
is a splendid essay; how much finer it might have been had he not
wasted so many pages on what he took to be Schopenhauer's science!

CHAPTER XI

'TRISTAN AND ISOLDA'

I

For those who have ears, eyes and understanding _Tristan and Isolda_
is Wagner's most perfect work, is the finest opera in the world.
Unluckily there are in the world far too many persons who are not
content to have a work of supreme art, but must needs read into it
old, stale platitudes: when they have proved it to be an exposition of
these platitudes they conceive that they have deserved the gratitude
of the people for interpreting the artist and of the artist for having
interpreted him, having made his meaning clear. As I have written
elsewhere of _Tristan_, "Wagner's consummate dramatic art, stage-craft
and knowledge of stage effect have combined to make all clear as the
day"; but the commentators have rushed in with their comments be