_Rhinegold_ been a better subject for the purpose they might have
reached maturity while writing it. But there is no human element in
it, and without that Wagner could not get on. We have already seen
that he abandoned the idea of the _Mastersingers_ for years--until, in
fact, he had created a soul for Sachs: then he went ahead and gave us
a series of magnificent pictures of old Nuremberg. In the same way,
though he wrote some fine music in the _Rhinegold_, in richness,
splendour of colouring, it does not compare with the _Valkyrie_, where
he is chiefly concerned with two human beings and a being who must be
called only a demi-goddess, half-goddess and half-human. He could not
compose unless he had the double inspiration, the human soul and the
pictorial environment. If I had to select three of Wagner's works to
live with I should take the _Valkyrie_, _Tristan_ and the
_Mastersingers_. In them we find inspiration and craftmanship in
absolute proportion; in the later dramas of the _Ring_ we shall see
how craftsmanship outran inspiration--sometimes with results that can
only be called deplorable. This matter must be reserved for discussion
until we deal with the operas separately.

The labyrinthine libretto owes its defects not to the many years it
took to write--for when once Wagner set to work it was done in a
single breath--but to the nature of the subject and the very German way
in which a German composer inevitably felt impelled to treat that
subject. In Chapter X, p. 193 and onward, the reader will recollect
certain letters: I beg him, before going further, to turn back to
these and mark with care Wagner's own story of the growth of this
gigantic opera. The letter on p. 227 is most characteristic of a
German. _Siegfried's Death_ did not explain enough, so an explanation
had to be offered; that explanation needed explaining, so a second
explanation was made; this left matters in as unsatisfactory a state
as ever, so, finally, the first opera of the four, the _Rhinegold_,
was written--and with that Wagner mercifully stopped. He had set
himself a task simply appalling in the demands it must needs make on
his time and creative energy; moreover, he had set himself a task just
as hard in the demands it made on his stage-craft. The four dramas
could not but overlap, and they do overlap to such an extent that in
the very near future "cuts" will be made freely to eliminate
repetitions which have even now grown a weariness t