third act has not the freshness of the first two.
Wotan has become an important figure, and brought reason and pessimism
with him into the drama. Wagner's later conceptions were perhaps
loftier, and his genius was more master of itself (think of the classic
dignity in the awakening of Bruennhilde); but the ardour and happy
expression of youth is gone. I know that this is not the opinion of most
of Wagner's admirers; but, with the exception of a few pages of sublime
beauty, I have never altogether liked the love scenes at the end of
_Siegfried_ and at the beginning of _Goetterdaemmerung_. I find their
style rather pompous and declamatory; and their almost excessive
refinement makes them border upon dulness. The form of the duet, too,
seems cut and dried, and there are signs of weariness in it. The
heaviness of the last pages of _Siegfried_ recalls _Die Meistersinger_,
which is also of that period. It is no longer the same joy nor the same
quality of joy that is found in the earlier acts.

Yet it does not really matter, for joy is there, nevertheless; and so
splendid was the first inspiration of the work that the years have not
dimmed its brilliancy. One would like to end with _Siegfried_, and
escape the gloomy _Goetterdaemmerung_. For those who have sensitive
feelings the fourth day of the Tetralogy has a depressing effect. I
remember the tears I have seen shed at the end of the _Ring_, and the
words of a friend, as we left the theatre at Bayreuth and descended the
hill at night: "I feel as though I were coming away from the burial of
someone I dearly loved." It was truly a time of mourning. Perhaps there
was something incongruous in building such a structure when it had
universal death for its conclusion--or at least in making the whole an
object of show and instruction. _Tristan_ achieves the same end with
much more power, as the action is swifter. Besides that, the end of
_Tristan_ is not without comfort, for life there is terrible. But it is
not the same in _Goetterdaemmerung_; for in spite of the absurdity of the
spell which is set upon the love of Siegfried and Bruennhilde, life with
them is happy and desirable, since they are beings capable of love, and
death appears to be a splendid but awful catastrophe. And one cannot say
the _Ring_ breathes a spirit of renunciation and sacrifice like
_Parsifal_; renunciation and sacrifice are only talked about in the
_Ring_; and, in spite of the last transports which impel Bru