Wagner wrote so much about himself and his art, and appeared so fully
satisfied with his explanations of why he became just what he became
and of why his art was just what it was, that naturally for nearly a
generation his critics fell into one or other of two errors. Either
they accepted his theorisings unreservedly or as unreservedly they
rejected them. In the second case they had to face the difficulty of
coining, shaping, a theory of their own; in either case shipwreck
nearly always promptly ensued; and on the whole, if Wagner had to be
theorised about, one would prefer to have it done by Wagner. He
himself knew the tiny value of his theorisings about his art, for he
declared that when he wrote _Tristan and Isolda_ he found he had
already left his theories far behind. This discovery might well have
served as a warning both to Wagner and to the hosts of his
commentators. Unluckily Wagner was far too fond of theorising,
moralising and generally talking of himself and his works, and he
reckoned he had a big propagandist work to do; so he went on
scribbling to the end. As for the commentators, they neglected the
warning and took Wagner's later doings as an example, with the result
that the library shelves of Europe are stopped and blocked with as big
a heap of rubbish as ever was provoked by great works of art since the
world began to turn round. For Wagner there is an ample excuse: he
honestly thought it necessary to spread his ideas abroad; his aims and
intentions had been so misunderstood, and so stupidly, wickedly,
recklessly misrepresented, that he did not believe his music-dramas
would ever find acceptance until he had cleared the way by explaining
himself. Little good came of it--in fact, the only good result was
that some of his writings fell into the hands of Ludwig II of Bavaria,
and thus led to the ending of his days of misery, and indirectly to
Bayreuth. For the commentators no word of extenuation can be said.