rationalist formulas fashionable in other countries; she has preferred
to relinquish her foremost place in the European commonwealth rather
than her ideals. To us the policy of Philip II appears as perverse as
the notions of honour and Christianity appear extravagant in Spanish
dramas; the reason is that we are not Spaniards, and we read their
history through the spectacles of rationalist historians. But if we
once concede their fundamental notions as they understand them, we
must acknowledge that Spanish history and Spanish art proceed directly
out of them more logically, more naturally, than in those nations
which are continually being drawn aside, now this way, now the other,
by the political notions and passing philosophies of the day.

Wagner made his first acquaintance with the Spanish drama in the
winter of 1857-58, when engaged on the composition of _Tristan_,
and at once seized its character with the sympathetic insight of
genius. His remarks in a letter to Liszt written at this time[25] are
so noteworthy, and bear so directly upon the work with which we are
concerned, that I will add a translation of a portion of the letter:

I am almost inclined to place Calderon by himself
and above all others. Through him, too, I have learned
to understand the Spanish character. Unprecedented,
unrivalled in its blossom, it developed so rapidly that
its material body soon perished, and it ended in
negation of the world. The refined, deeply passionate
consciousness of the nation finds expression in the
notion of _honour_, wherein its noblest and at the same
time its most terrible elements unite to a second
religion. Extremes of selfish desire and of sacrifice
both seek to be satisfied. The nature of the "world"