People easily go _leit-motif_ mad, and their insane
imagination creates a _leit-motif_ out of any two phrases that have a
superficial and accidental resemblance. _Tristan_ and the _Ring_ are not
musical puzzles. The themes are quite able to look after themselves, and
to assert themselves at the proper moment. Many of them are not
_leit-motifs_ at all. The passage out of the sea-song, which is heard
constantly through the first act, is not a _leit-motif_, nor are many of
the other subjects. They receive symphonic development; but, after all,
the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony do not form a
_leit-motif_. I have dwelt at length upon this, for misguided people
have blinded both themselves and others as to Wagner's true aims and
methods and the splendour of the accomplished thing by trying to read
into his music a host of trifling and pettifogging allusions which he
never intended. There is enough to break our minds upon without
troubling about these.

In the second act we are left in the dark as to what has happened since
we left Isolda in Tristan's arms on the deck of the ship. Some years ago
an excited discussion took place on a very momentous question--"Did
Isolda marry King Mark or not?" If not, it was strange that she should
have been left free enough apparently to see Tristan whenever she
wished, and Mark's expostulations at the end of the act seem rather
unwarranted in the mouth of a man whose honour, in the Divorce Court
sense, has not been smirched; yet, on the other hand, it is unlikely
that a legendary King, with the bride in his palace, would wait so long
for the marriage as to allow the many pretty incidents mentioned by
Brangaena to happen. Yet again, if they were married, Mark, in the third
act, shows a more than heroic willingness and less than cuckold
readiness to let Isolda go free. Probably Wagner never gave the problem
a moment's consideration, which is hardly surprising when we consider
his own multitudinous love affairs. He was not writing a Sunday-school
tract, but a drama of passion so intense that purity, prudence and all
such considerations were thrown to the winds.

The act opens with a very Proteus of a theme. Its entrance is like a
thunder-clap in a cloudless sky. The conductor lifts his stick, and
then--

[Illustration: Some bars of music]

--an unprepared discord which must have pained the ears and grieved the
hearts of the ordinary opera-goers and pedants when the opera