It is Wagner’s ambition to imitate those facetious students who teach their dog to say ‘papa.’ He wants to perform the trick of making music say the names ‘Schulze’ and ‘Müller’ (=Smith and Jones). The score should, when necessary, supply the place of the directory. Language does not suffice him. He creates for himself a _volapük_, and demands that his hearers should learn it. No admission without hard work! Those who have not assimilated the vocabulary of the Wagnerian _volapük_ cannot understand his operas. It is useless to go to the trouble of a journey to Bayreuth if one cannot talk fluently in _leit-motifs_. And how pitiable after all is the result of this delirious effort! H. von Wolzogen, the writer of the _Thematische Leitfaden_ (Thematic Guide) to the Niebelungen Tetralogy, finds in all these four prodigious works only ninety _leit-motifs_. A language of ninety words, however inflated they may be, such as ‘motif of the weary Siegmund,’ ‘motif of the mania for vengeance,’ ‘motif of bondage,’ etc.! with such a vocabulary it would be impossible even to exchange ideas about the weather with a native of Tierra del Fuego. A page of Sanders’ lexicon contains more means of expression than Wolzogen’s entire dictionary of the Wagnerian _leit-motif_ language. The history of art knows no more astounding aberration than this _leit-motif_ craze. To express ideas is not the function of music; language provides for that as completely as could be desired. When the word is accompanied by song or orchestra it is not to make it more definite, but to re-enforce it by the intervention of emotion. Music is a kind of sounding-board, in which the word has to awake something like an echo from the infinite. But such an echo of presentiment and mystery does not ring out from _leit-motifs_ coldly pasted together, as if by the labour of a conscientious registrar.