Wagner's art is an appeal to inartistic people; all means are welcomed which help towards obtaining an effect. It is calculated not to produce an artistic effect but an effect upon the nerves in general.
45.
Apparently in Wagner we have an art for everybody, because coarse and subtle means seem to be united in it. Albeit its pre-requisite may be musico-æsthetic education, and particularly with moral indifference.
46.
In Wagner we find the most ambitious combination of all means with the view of obtaining the strongest effect: whereas genuine musicians quietly develop individual genres.
47.
Dramatists are borrowers—their principal source of wealth—artistic thoughts drawn from the epos. Wagner borrowed from classical music besides. Dramatists are constructive geniuses, they are not inventive and original as the epic poets are. Drama takes a lower rank than the epos: it presupposes a coarser and more democratic public.
48.
Wagner does not altogether trust music. He weaves kindred sensations into it in order to lend it the character of greatness. He measures himself on others; he first of all gives his listeners intoxicating drinks in order to lead them into believing that it was the music that intoxicated them.