supreme law; what I can
accomplish by obeying my instincts is what I ought to do. Is that
voice of instinct cursed or blessed? I do not know; but I yield to
it, and never force myself to run counter to my inclination."

Wagner fought against civilisation by quite other methods than those
employed by Tolstoy; and if the efforts of the two were equally great,
the practical result is--one must really say it--as poor on one side as
on the other.

What Tolstoy's raillery is really aimed at is not Wagner's work, but the
way in which his work was represented. The splendours of the setting do
not hide the childishness of the ideas behind them: the dragon Fafna,
Fricka's rams, the bear, the serpent, and all the Valhalla menagerie
have always been ridiculous. I will only add that the dragon's failure
to be terrifying was not Wagner's fault, for he never attempted to
depict a terrifying dragon. He gave it quite clearly, and of his own
choice, a comic character. Both the text and the music make Fafner a
sort of ogre, a simple creature, but, above all, a grotesque one.

Besides, I cannot help feeling that scenic reality takes away rather
than adds to the effect of these great philosophical fairylands. Malwida
von Meysenbug told me that at the Bayreuth festival of 1876, while she
was following one of the _Ring_ scenes very attentively with her
opera-glasses, two hands were laid over her eyes, and she heard Wagner's
voice say impatiently: "Don't look so much at what is going on. Listen!"
It was good counsel. There are dilettanti who pretend that at a concert
the best way to enjoy Beethoven's last works--where the sonority is
defective--is to stop the ears and read the score. One might say with
less of a paradox that the best way to follow a performance of Wagner's
operas is to listen with the eyes shut. So perfect is the music, so
powerful its hold on the imagination, that it leaves nothing to be
desired; what it suggests to the mind is infinitely finer than what the
eyes may see. I have never shared the opinion that Wagner's works may
be best appreciated in the theatre. His works are epic symphonies. As a
frame for them I should like temples; as scenery, the illimitable land
of thought; as actors, our dreams.

* * * * *

The first act of _Siegfried_ is one of the most dramatic in the
Tetralogy. Nothing satisfied me more completely at Bayreuth, both as
regards the actors and the drama