Ever inquiring,
Where sinew doth reign,
And seedlings are rooted,
What well a man
Could mightier deem
Than woman's wonderful worth."
Again, it is not the text, but the marvellous burst of throbbing melody that tells the thought in Wagner's mind. But does it tell all? Study well the phrases in the score. Are they sincere, or does Wagner shadow forth just a suspicion of the dishonesty which lurks in the utterance? Loge knows that he has yet his trump card, the gold of the Rhine, to play; and either he believes that will be a winning card, or he is not the devil, after all.
What, then, becomes of this manifestation of Wagnerian philosophy, this joyous tempter of wooden gods? At the end of "Das Rheingold" his personal career ends. Henceforth only his soul hovers about us. Like the genie who, according to the veracious chronicler of the "Arabian Nights," had sinned against Solomon, he was shut up in a box, the old earth itself. He fades out of sight to reappear only in a materialistic exhibit of steam and red fire. A sad end, indeed, for such a thoughtful representation of sophistry. "Two special powers," says M. Taine, "lead mankind,—impulse and idea." Loge was the embodiment of idea. Farewell to thee, Idea. Henceforth let impulse lead us onward to love and death. Yet shall not Idea, subtle, crafty, remorseless, triumph at last?