Wagner at all, and if we wish to understand him, we must realise the point he started from in his half-conscious groping after the opera form which he only found in its full perfection in his _Tristan_ period. III In the music the head and shoulders of the real Wagner emerge boldly from the ruck of commonplace which constitutes the bulk of the operatic music of the time. How any one could have failed to see the strength and beauty of much of the _Dutchman_ is one of those things almost impossible to understand to-day. Of the tawdry vulgarity, the blatant clamour, of _Rienzi_ there is not a hint. The opera is by no means all on the highest level, but a good third of it is, and there are pages which Richard never afterwards surpassed. A dozen passages are prophetic of the Wagner of _Tristan_ and the _Ring_. Let me begin by quoting a few of these. The phrase (_a_, page 118) immediately suggests _Tristan_, as it screams higher and higher with ever-increasing intensity of passion; a variant of it (_b_) is charged with the same feeling, and is used in the same way. The feeling is not the same as in _Tristan_; both are used when Eric makes his last despairing appeals to Senta. But look at (_c_). Compare it with one of the themes (_d_) expressive of Wotan's anguish, and then recollect that (_c_) is used when Vanderdecken, in veiled speech, tells Daland of his woes. When Vanderdecken is yearning for Senta's love, and trembling lest by telling the truth he should frighten her, we get (_e_), afterwards developed with such poignant effect in the first and last acts of _Tristan_. Vanderdecken enters with Daland, and Senta, almost stunned, sets eyes on him for the first time. The musical phrase is (_f_), which, simplified and more direct in its appeal, was to be used when Siegmund and Sieglinda first gaze on one another. Then the passage (_g_) is one which the reader will find mentioned in my chapter on _Tristan_ (p. 263) as standing for quite a multitude of things in the _Ring_. A curious case is the little phrase (_h_) which occurs in the middle of the watchman's song. Of no significance here, of what tremendous import it is in the first act of _Tristan_.