Here then is the point where the difference will arise, and where we may well be careful whose decision we accept. Can we do better than Wagner did—leave the audience to decide? Wagner’s German audiences, described by Nordau as including wives and daughters, have, to his great bewilderment, given the verdict in favour of Wagner’s most passionate scenes. “How unperverted,” Nordau cries out, “must wives and maidens be, when they are in a state of mind to witness these pieces without blushing crimson, and sinking to the earth for shame!” No. They have not blushed in following calmly and serenely the objective representations of passions which by nature have been implanted in every breast. The very vehemence, the very naturalness of the scenes inspire that awe and reverence which great natural forces always do, and the young girl in the audience does not for a moment revert to any impure representations or animal promptings which might have come within her experience, because she is æsthetically and not sexually excited. But if Nordau could watch her when she reads the above quoted passage in his book, he would see her blush deeply, not at the memory of Wagner’s scenes, but at the feeling of having the first seed of degeneration sown in her heart. Among the phrases used by Nordau in order to inculcate his readers with the idea that Wagner, instead of being the very essence of an artist, one of the greatest practically creative geniuses of the world, is a mere erotic maniac, is this one—“all his ideas revolve about woman.” While this phrase may lead the unwary reader astray, it throws a vivid light on the extent to which Nordau’s opinion with regard to the relation of the sexes has been influenced by his continental bias. This ought to be made clear to his readers. Such expressions, if of any use at all in Nordau’s reasoning, pre-suppose that it is quite an unusual thing for the ideas of poets, dramatists, and writers of fiction to revolve about woman. For our alienist does not refer to Wagner’s private life. He is speaking only of Wagner the author. The actual fact, of course, is that love and women have from times immemorial been the subject of legends, fairy tales, troubadour songs, poems, romances, novels, and dramas. Thus, according to the gospel of our alienist, all the past and present poetical authors of the world must have been, and are, “subject to erotic madness,” like Wagner.