e how very much this music _improves_
me?--_Il faut mediterraniser la musique._ and I have my reasons for this
principle ("Beyond Good and Evil," pp. 216 _et seq._) The return to
Nature, health, good spirits, youth, _virtue_!--And yet I was one of the
most corrupted Wagnerites.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I was able to take Wagner seriously. Oh, this
old magician! what tricks has he not played upon us! The first thing his
art places in our hands is a magnifying glass: we look through it, and we
no longer trust our own eyes--Everything grows bigger, _even Wagner grows
bigger_.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} What a clever rattlesnake. Throughout his life he rattled
"resignation," "loyalty," and "purity" about our ears, and he retired from
the _corrupt_ world with a song of praise to chastity!--And we believed it
all.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

--But you will not listen to me? You _prefer_ even the _problem_ of Wagner
to that of Bizet? But neither do I underrate it; it has its charm. The
problem of salvation is even a venerable problem. Wagner pondered over
nothing so deeply as over salvation: his opera is the opera of salvation.
Someone always wants to be saved in his operas,--now it is a youth; anon it
is a maid,--this is _his problem_--And how lavishly he varies his
_leitmotif_! What rare and melancholy modulations! If it were not for
Wagner, who would teach us that innocence has a preference for saving
interesting sinners? (the case in "Tannhauser"). Or that even the eternal
Jew gets saved and _settled down_ when he marries? (the case in the
"Flying Dutchman"). Or that corrupted old females prefer to be saved by
chaste young men? (the case of Kundry). Or that young hysterics like to be
saved by their doctor? (the case in "Lohengrin"). Or that beautiful girls
most love to be saved by a knight who also happens to be a Wagnerite? (the
case in the "Mastersingers"). Or that even married women also like to be
saved by a knight? (the case of Isolde). Or that the venerable Almighty,
after having compromised himself morally in all manner of ways, is at last
delivered by a free spirit and an immoralist? (the case in the "Ring").
Admire, more especially this last piece of wisdom! Do you understand it?
I--take good care not to understand it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That it is possible to draw yet
other lessons from the works above mentioned,--I am much more ready to
prove than to dispute. That one may be driven by a Wagnerian ballet to
desperation--