shares in your opinion!
The Knight's song struck me as novel, yet not confused; although
he forsook the beaten track, he strode along with firm, unerring
step...." Sachs nods to himself and beams at this reviewing of
the intense pleasure he has just experienced. "When you find that
you have been trying to measure by your own rules that which does
not lie within the compass of your rules, the thing to do is to
forget your rules and try to discover the rules of that which you
wish to measure!" Which sage talk is not destined to be fruitfully
heard in the agitation of prejudice, alarm, and dislike possessing
the majority of the masters. "Oh, very well," fumes Beckmesser,
"Now you have heard him: Sachs offering a loophole to bunglers,
that they may slip in and out at will and flourish at ease. Sing
to the people as much as you please, in marketplace and street;
here no one shall gain admission save in accordance with rule!"
Sachs insists that Walther must be heard to the end. "The guild of
the masters, the whole body," chafes Beckmesser, "are as nothing
counterbalanced by Sachs!" "God forbid," speaks Sachs, "that I should
desire anything contrary to the guild's laws; but among those very
laws it stands written that the Marker shall be so chosen that
neither love nor hate may influence his judgment. Now, if the Marker
go on lover's feet, how should he not yield to the temptation of
bringing a rival to derision before the assembled school?" Beckmesser
flares up, trembling with rage. "What concern of Master Sachs's is
it on what sort of feet I go? Let him sooner turn his attention to
making me shoes that will not hurt my toes. But since my shoe-maker
has become a mighty poet, it's a sorry business with my foot-wear.
See there, all down at the heel, the sole half off and shuffling!
His many verses and rhymes I would cheerfully dispense with, likewise
his tales, his plays, and his comical pieces, if he would just
bring me home my new shoes for to-morrow!" The thrust tells. Sachs
scratches his ear a little ruefully, but is not found quite without
a word to say. The excuse he advances is that while it is his custom
to write a verse on the sole of every shoe he delivers, he has
not yet found a verse worthy of the learned town-clerk. "But,"
by a turn of the conversation directing it to a use nearer his
heart, "I very likely shall catch inspiration from the Knight,"
he says, "when I have heard the whole of his song! Wherefore let
h