lt to be more precise--that is all.

The prelude prepares for Sachs' monologue, a profound thing, and one
moreover entirely new--had Shakespeare been a musician he might have
done something like it. Then David the Irresponsible enters, and we
get some more of Wagner's exquisite fooling; next we have Walther with
his "dream," out of which the Prize-song is made. This is a long
scene--perhaps a little too long--for Wagner seems to have been
determined that if the audience did not feel the beauty of his melody
it should not be for want of hearing it often enough. As Walther
sings Sachs takes it down in tablature, calling out to him what
sections are next required. Sachs then declares that this is indeed a
master-song, and will win Walther the prize he so much desires; he and
Walther go off to attire themselves for the contest, and Beckmesser
limps in. In dumb show he describes his aches and pains and shows how
he is thinking of his thrashing of the night before; and what he does
not say the orchestra says very plainly for him. There is far too much
of it--for English tastes, at any rate--before he is alarmed by
discovering the still wet manuscript in Sachs' handwriting. He
snatches it up and conceals it; Sachs comes back dressed for the great
ceremony, and there is a row--Beckmesser querulous, bitterly angry and
suspicious, on the one hand, Sachs quietly scornful on the other. Let
me point out that this scene is another example of Wagner's stage
craftsmanship at its best. There is nothing conventional in the way
Sachs and Walther are got off to give Beckmesser his chance: what more
natural than that they should go to prepare themselves? Nor is the
finding of the manuscript one of those things that give people who
don't like opera cause to blaspheme: Sachs simply left it on the table
to dry until he returned for it. Compare this scene with that in
Verdi's _Falstaff_, where that fat hero, hiding behind a screen, must
be supposed not to hear an elaborate ensemble number sung by the other
characters--an instance which one might presume to be intended to make
the "aside" so ridiculous that no one would ever dare to use it again.
Wagner, for the time, at any rate, had ceased to make demands on the
credulity of his audiences or their meek acceptance of a preposterous
convention. The business is kept up too long, as I have just
confessed; and this is perhaps explained by Wagner's evident desire to
make fun of the men who for years