As the writer has had occasion to say elsewhere, “The alteration to which the music is subjected is one of rhythm. The _motif_ changes from six-eight to common rhythm. The effect produced is one of those which are founded upon the nature of music. A six-eight rhythm is light and tripping; a four-beat rhythm is firm and solid.” This alteration of the representative theme, then, “develops the character of the melody along the same lines as Siegfried’s character has developed,—from lightness and ebulliency to firmness and solidity.” These examples should be sufficient to give the reader a tolerable comprehension of the manner in which Wagner worked out his new operatic form. It seems necessary now only to lay special stress upon the suggestion already offered, that the listener at the performance of a Wagner music-drama does not treat either himself or the composer fairly when he busies his mind wholly with the identification of the themes as they present themselves successively to his hearing. The proper effort is to get at the organic connection between action or thought and the music, to read each by the light of the other, and to see whether it is not possible to penetrate by means of the two into the spirit of the drama. If the hearer accomplishes this, he will have at least the right to say that he has approached the consideration of this art work of Wagner’s in a spirit of fairness; and though he may not know the title of a single theme, he will have a far better understanding of their meaning than they who have committed to memory some one of the thematic handbooks.