implored Wagner not to set it. At first sight it seems so hopelessly
involved and intricate, the main dramatic idea works its way so
sinuously through such a maze of subsidiary ideas, that intellectually
honest and intelligent people can hardly be blamed if they are unable to
see at a glance what it is all about. Yet the plot is not more
complicated than that of many a novel, and the real trouble is that we
won't take the pains over it that we do over a novel, or, perhaps, do
not apply our intelligence in the best way. At this time of day no one,
I hope, will condemn a work of art because it cannot be grasped in a
glance.

There are four music-dramas, or operas (I use the terms
indiscriminately, now that there is no danger of the Wagnerian opera
being confused with the older forms). Wagner made each self-contained,
complete and comprehensible by itself, and yet he carried the main
action on from one to the next until the final catastrophe; but he did
this at the cost of much repetition, whence another charge brought
against the work--that of its interminable tedium. I will therefore
first disentangle the main idea, which is simple. Let it be granted that
Wotan is ruler of the world--not a first cause, but a god, limited in
his powers, conditioned, ruling only so long as he obeys the laws
inscribed in Runic characters on his spear. How he arrived in this
position we do not know, any more than we know the origin of the Greek
gods; indeed, in this respect and others there are parallels between the
Greek and the Northern mythology. Wotan goes in fear lest the powers of
the nether world usurp his domination, which he wants to make absolute.
He makes a pact with the giants--the Titan forces of the earth--that be
will give them Freia if they build him a castle, Valhalla, which he
intends to fill with slain warriors in sufficient numbers to keep down
his foes. This is his primary, essential, fatal blunder; for unless the