eloquently of quivering comprehension and of powerful penetration as of the approach of love and self-renunciation. Intoxicated speech follows the course of this rhythm; melody resounds coupled with speech, and in its turn melody projects its sparks into the realm of images and ideas. A dream-apparition, like and unlike the image of Nature and her wooer, hovers forward; it condenses into more human shapes; it spreads out in response to its heroically triumphant will, and to a most delicious collapse and cessation of will:--thus tragedy is born; thus life is presented with its grandest knowledge--that of tragic thought; thus, at last, the greatest charmer and benefactor among mortals--the dithyrambic dramatist--is evolved. VIII. Wagner's actual life--that is to say, the gradual evolution of the dithyrambic dramatist in him--was at the same time an uninterrupted struggle with himself, a struggle which never ceased until his evolution was complete. His fight with the opposing world was grim and ghastly, only because it was this same world--this alluring enemy--which he heard speaking out of his own heart, and because he nourished a violent demon in his breast--the demon of resistance. When the ruling idea of his life gained ascendancy over his mind--the idea that drama is, of all arts, the one that can exercise the greatest amount of influence over the world--it aroused the most active emotions in his whole being. It gave him no very clear or luminous decision, at first, as to what was to be done and desired in the future; for the idea then appeared merely as a form of temptation--that is to say, as the expression of his gloomy, selfish, and insatiable will, eager for _power and glory_. Influence--the greatest amount of influence--how? over whom?--these were henceforward the questions and problems which did not cease to engage his head and his heart. He wished to conquer and triumph as no other artist had ever done before, and, if possible, to reach that height of tyrannical omnipotence at one stroke for which all his instincts secretly craved. With a jealous and cautious eye, he took stock of everything successful, and examined with special care all that upon which this influence might be brought to bear. With the magic sight of the dramatist, which scans souls as easily as the most familiar book, he scrutinised the nature of the spectator and the listener, and although he was often perturbed by the discoveries he made, he very quickly found means wherewith he could enthral them. These means were ever within his reach: everything that moved him deeply he desired and could also produce; at every stage in his career he understood just as much of his predecessors as he himself was able to create, and he never doubted that he would be able to do what they had done. In this respect his nature is perhaps more presumptuous even than Goethe's, despite the fact that the latter said of himself: "I always thought I