ther he says (to music
quoted from _Tristan_) he would not play the part of King Mark and
thus invite his Isolda to find a Tristan. I ask the reader to compare
this phrase with one form of the first love-theme in _Tristan_ (_g_).
The essential notes are the same; but as a melody is made to sound
another and different thing by varying the harmonies, there is in the
Sachs phrase a touch of sadness, nearly hopelessness, but no hint of
it in the _Tristan_ form. The true meaning is not obvious when it
first occurs: Sachs seems simply to be the appreciator of true art and
to be standing up for the true artist Walther against the barren
pedant Beckmesser.

And I beg leave here to make a digression. I have spoken of Wagner's
obsession by the notion that he could by his union of drama, music,
pictorial art, etc., make his work clear enough to be understood at a
first performance: in his letters he referred to a plan for giving the
_Ring_ only once and then burning the theatre and the score--he did
not add the composer and the artists. Unfortunately this view has been
taken as a tenable one by good critics, and it has been argued
seriously that such a phrase as (_d_) is meaningless, because its
significance becomes apparent only in the second act. No great work of
art can be seen at one glance--least of all Wagner's. If a painter
puts before us a picture, say, of Perseus and Andromeda, we know at
any rate what it is about; and there is no difficulty in understanding
a Madonna. But, with the exception of the _Dutchman_, Wagner reshaped
all his subjects so that, for instance, an acquaintance with the
Nibelung legends is rather a hindrance than a help to a swift
understanding of the _Ring_. At first his King Mark is a puzzle to
those who know the Arthurian legends; and in the same way, if the
Sachs of history is confounded with Wagner's Sachs, we are at once
utterly at sea. But a knowledge of Wagner's Sachs can scarcely be
acquired from the words alone: more is told us in the music than in
the words; and before we can grasp the drama as well as Wagner's use
of phrases we must hear the opera many, many times. I deny that this
is an illegitimate mode of appeal to an audience; I deny that the
indispensability of knowing an opera thoroughly before you judge it is
to imply that it is less than a very great work of art; I affirm that
the nobler, profounder, more beautiful a work of art, the more
necessary it is to be able to look at ever