Let his methods remain in the dark like his orchestra.... That imagination of his, feverish and excessive, has not only renovated music, but has also overwhelmed poetry and philosophy. Although theories disquiet me, still I feel them trembling in Wagner behind each one of his heroes. The gods talk of their destiny and of the conflict of that destiny with the destiny of men; they talk of ancient Fate in a way that is sometimes obscure, but with a rush and a go that make one forget to question them. It is the famous wall of the Légende des Siècles, crowded with the tubas and the trumpets of Sachs, tumultuous and glittering in their mass. It is quite possible that Wagner desired to have characters of a size suited to their surroundings, and that one would feel uncomfortable while considering ordinary men who should be victims of the Ocean of Tristan or of the Forest of Siegfried. What difference does it make? He succeeds in moving us with these superterrestrial passions. In Tristan humanity plays a larger part. These are our own wounds which are bleeding in the flesh of the lovers, wounds that the sacred spear, which the hero brings back with him, shall never heal. It will be seen that these are the utterances of a man who has pondered music as well as felt it deeply. He knew Wagner, and was a welcome visitor at Wahnfried. “Daudet pleases me much,” Wagner once said. The openly expressed admiration of this cultured Frenchman must have flattered the composer greatly. Because Daudet admired Wagner, his perception of Beethoven’s greatness was not blurred. He puts the case succinctly: “It were better to say that the masterpiece by Beethoven being more concentrated and closely woven makes a total impression upon you in a much shorter time than does a drama with its necessary stops and changes of scenery and delays for explanation.” This in answer to his son Léon, who had asserted that the emotions aroused by a Beethoven symphony include “a deeper and rarer quality” than those evoked by the Ring. The elder Daudet finds that Wagner is saturated by nature and nature’s sounds:—