“C'est la rage de voulour penser et sentir au delà de sa force” (Doudan). The Wagnerites.
25.
Wagner whose ambition far exceeds his natural gifts, has tried an incalculable number of times to achieve what lay beyond his powers—but it almost makes one shudder to see some one assail with such persistence that which defies conquest—the fate of his constitution.
26.
He is always thinking of the most extreme expression,—in every word. But in the end superlatives begin to pall.
27.
There is something which is in the highest degree suspicious in Wagner, and that is Wagner's suspicion. It is such a strong trait in him, that on two occasions I doubted whether he were a musician at all.
28.
The proposition: “in the face of perfection there is no salvation save love,”[16] is thoroughly [pg 091] Wagnerian. Profound jealousy of everything great from which he can draw fresh ideas. Hatred of all that which he cannot approach, the Renaissance, French and Greek art in style.