schoolboy could quickly have settled for him"; we are not surprised to
find the same critic sneering at Kant and Plato! Such writers there
will always be, but a nation which tolerates them cannot expect to
maintain an honourable place in the intellectual commonwealth.




CHAPTER II

WAGNER AS MAN


The distinction so often made with a genius between the "man" and the
"artist" has been justly ridiculed by Wagner himself. For the truest
individuality of an artist is in his art, not when he leaves his own
proper sphere and enters one that is foreign to him. Beethoven is the
writer of symphonies and sonatas, not the suspicious friend and
unmannerly plebeian. The _man_ is the same in both relations,
_i.e._ his character remains the same, only it manifests itself
differently under changed conditions, and the difference lies not in
him, but in the point of view from which we regard him. Let us bear
this in mind in considering Wagner as he appeared away from his art.

A genius has been aptly likened to an astronomical telescope, which is
able to scan the heavens, but is useless for things close at hand. To
some extent this is true of Wagner, but less so than with most, and
not in the sense in which it has been often asserted. The attacks
which have been made upon Wagner's private character show little
discrimination, for it is a simple truth that the particular vices of