Significant Moments: Of Music Festivals, Presidential Politics, and Zionism

Albert Rothenberg, M.D. first described or discovered a process he termed "homospatial thinking," which consists of actively conceiving two or more discrete entities occupying the same space, a conception leading to the articulation of new identities. Homospatial thinking has a salient role in the creative process in the following wide variety of fields: literature, the visual arts, music, science, and mathematics. This cognitive factor, along with "Janusian thinking," clarifies the nature of creative thinking as a highly adaptive and primarily nonregressive form of functioning.

There is a section of my book Significant Moments whose manifest content describes the composer Richard Wagner's opera festival at Bayreuth, Germany.

Superimposed on this manifest content are other images or metaphors:

1. U.S. Presidential politics.  Gore Vidal's novel 1876 is about the disputed Tilden-Hayes Presidential election of 1876.  Note that the Bush-Gore election of 2000 was also disputed.

2. Zionism

_____________________________ 

May 1872
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries.
Notes
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground.
To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is a finer.
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
I write this on my lap, seated in a crowded . . .
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
. . . tent . . .
Edgar B.P. Darlington, The Circus Boys on the Mississippi.
. . . as in a circus;
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Saturday, January 6, 1872).
. . . on the firm slopes of a hill . . .
Zane Grey, The Lone Star Ranger.
. . . at the edge of town.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (Part II).
I am so hemmed in that I can barely write in this book. Against . . .
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
. . . the great scaffolding . . .
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Saturday, July 5, 1873).
. . . opposite me, sit the members of the special committee charged with . . .
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
. . . the undertaking’s . . .
Protection of Historic and Cultural Properties (36 CFR 800).
. . . financial arrangements.
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
Added later but referred back to this point:
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Wednesday, July 14, 1880) (editors’ emendation).
—not a vestige of anything was left in view but just a little of the
rim. . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . around the “crater”
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Sunday, October 13, 1872).
(as it was called)
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
Added at the bottom of the page:
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Sunday, February 4, 1883) (editors’ emendation).
An old suspicion has it that no building is sound whose foundations have not cost a human sacrifice.
Sigmund Freud, Letter to Eduard Silberstein.
and the words
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Friday, February 9, 1883) (editors’ emendation).
the mayor is horrified
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Tuesday, March 18, 1873).
In the foregoing
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Friday, February 9, 1883) (editors’ emendation).
the Mayor
Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People.
has been altered in another handwriting into
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Friday, February 9, 1883) (editors’ emendation).
a government official
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
I hear a man . . .
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
. . . from the management committee . . .
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Thursday, August 14, 1873).
. . . say that . . .
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
. . .10,000 marks have been deducted from the receipts for seats for the press.
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Thursday, May 5, 1881).
It has been raining hard since early morning. On a hill above Bayreuth mud is everywhere and ankle deep. Long banners—twenty-one of them—with the national and Bavarian colours, hang wet and limp in the incessant downpour. No less soggy is a waiting crowd, people from all around Germany. A military band stands in place, but the dripping platform for dignitaries and singers . . .
Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival.
. . . placarded with grandiloquent welcomes . . .
Elmer Bendiner, A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations.
. . . is empty. Just after eleven o'clock a carriage draws up, and out steps a small man with one of the most famous and frequently caricatured profiles in Europe. He is Richard Wagner, and it is Wednesday, 22 May 1872, his fifty-ninth birthday. It is also one of the most important days in his life. 'Everything that had happened up to now', Nietzsche later wrote, 'was a preparation for this moment.'

The moment was the occasion when the foundation-stone of Wagner's own opera house was to be laid. Once the composer and his friends had arrived, the band struck up his March of Homage, to King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The stone was then lowered into place and with it a capsule containing a telegram of congratulation from the King, several Bavarian and German coins and a holograph scrip with the composer's own quatrain . . .
Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival.
He came forward with a rapid step that expressed his eagerness to appear before his public and gave rise to the illusion that he had already come a long way to put himself at their service—
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
As a man of the theater, . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl.
. . . Wagner . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . was thoroughly familiar with the magic of props, lighting, and costume, and so from the first moment of his arrival in . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl.
. . . Bayreuth . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . he personally supervised every detail. There is an element of theater in all . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl.
. . . political crusades, . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . the convergence of the two has rarely been as evident as at this moment in . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl.
. . . Wagner’s . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . life.
Amos Elon, Herzl.
He had sought stardom, perhaps even needed it. He had stage presence, an actor in him, and great confidence in his abilities. He liked being in the public eye and generally didn’t get nervous there; indeed, he seemed to thrive in the limelight.
Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg.
He drew vigorous applause and then . . .
Elmer Bendiner, A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations.
. . . took an envelope out of his pocket, removed its enclosure, glanced at it—seemed astonished—held it out and gazed at it—stared at it.

Twenty or thirty voices cried out:
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
"Courage, we count on you, we are with you!"
Elmer Bendiner, A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations.
"Read it! read it! What is it?"
And he did—slowly, and wondering:
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
'Here I enclose a secret, And if it remains many hundred years, As long as the stone preserves it, It will reveal itself to the world.' Wagner took a hammer and tapped the block three times, saying with the first strike, 'Be blessed, my stone, endure for long and be steadfast.'
Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival.
He paused.
Monica Crowley, Nixon in Winter.
We want to lay the foundation stone . . .
Theodor Herzl, Excerpt from Address to the First Zionist Congress at Basel.
. . . he said, . . .
Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection.
. . . for the house which will become the refuge of . . .
Theodor Herzl, Excerpt from Address to the First Zionist Congress at Basel.
. . . The Artwork of the Future.
Richard Wagner, The Artwork of the Future.
Deathly pale, . . .
Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival.
“ . . . tears just ran right out of his eyes. It was beautifully done, those tears”
Bruce Mazlish, In Search of Nixon: A Psychohistorical Inquiry.
At this point there was an intermission. Our lord and master withdrew.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
So the curtain fell on Act One.
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
The friendly Bavarian town, Wagner's shrine, . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
. . . had an air of self-conscious solemnity, becoming to an occasion so universally proclaimed as historic, but it also . . .
Elmer Bendiner, A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations.
. . . woke up world-celebrated—astonished—happy—vain. Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens and their wives went about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and smiling, and congratulating, and saying THIS thing adds a new word to the dictionary—
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
Bayreuth
Oxford English Dictionary.
. . . synonym for . . .
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
dazzling spectacle
Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.
—destined to live in dictionaries for ever! And the minor and unimportant citizens and their wives went around acting in much the same way.
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
To be a . . .
Chaim Weizmann, as attributed by Amos Elon.
. . . Wagnerian . . .
Amos Elon, The Israelis: Founders and Sons quoting Theodor Herzl.
. . . it is not necessary to be mad, but it helps.
Chaim Weizmann, as attributed by Amos Elon.
At eleven-forty the rain had suddenly ceased, and arrangements were completed to . . .
Ronald C. White, Jr., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural.
. . . continue . . .
Abraham Lincoln, The Second Inaugural Address.
. . . the ceremonies outside.
Ronald C. White, Jr., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural.
"Wagner's here!" So saying, . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . the interval passed, the gong sounded. The audience, which had scattered in conversation, took their places again . . .
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
As far as the eye could see, the throng looked like waves breaking at its outer edges.
Ronald C. White, Jr., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (quoting Noah Brooks of the Sacramento Daily Union).
No composer, and few human beings, have had Wagner's sense of mission.
Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers.
He made no effort to disguise his strategy:
Elmer Bendiner, A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations.
“We show them our hands,” he explains. “We say, ‘Listen, just so you know, we’re here to manipulate you and show you beautiful things. Apparently, you want to do this. Now do you want to be massaged?’”
John Lahr, The Ringmaster: The Garish and Giddy World of Baz Luhrmann.
After removing his hat, scarf, and mantle he came forward to the front of the stage . . .
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
. . . and—bang!—
John Lahr, The Ringmaster: The Garish and Giddy World of Baz Luhrmann.
. . . in something of a high-wire act, . . .
David Mermelstein, Wagner’s “Parsifal”—The Sorrow & the pity.
. . . showed himself a practiced speaker, never at a loss for conversational turns of phrase.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
“I have but a word to say to you, and I shall sum it up with a bit of advice . . . ”
Theodore Roosevelt, Excerpt from Presidential Address Delivered to the Students of the Central High School of Philadelphia.
"You show them you have in you something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability," he would say. "Of course you must take care of the motives—right motives—always."
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
Only an experienced and self-assured gambler would have taken such a risk.
Peter Gay, Freud, Jews and Other Germans.
So far, the man had done nothing; but what he had said was accepted as an achievement, by means of that he had made an impression.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
My friends, . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
There are human beings who . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
. . . know the masses, . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
. . . who . . .
J. Thomas Looney, “Shakespeare” Identified.
. . . know the theater . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
. . . and who are able to . . .
J. Thomas Looney, “Shakespeare” Identified.
. . . find their public even as their public finds and drafts them.
Erik H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility.
The crowd roared approval.
Jim Bishop, FDR'S Last Year: April 1944-April 1945.
The capacity for self-surrender, he said, for becoming a tool . . .
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
. . . of the people . . .
Woodrow Wilson, Excerpt from Presidential Address Delivered at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.
. . . was but the reverse side of that other power to will and to command. Commanding and obeying formed together one single principle, one indissoluble unity; he who knew how to obey also knew how to command, and conversely; the one idea was comprehended in the other, as people and leader were comprehended in one another.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
The only vision has been the vision of the people.
Woodrow Wilson, Excerpt from Presidential Address Delivered at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.
"You have now seen what we can do," he said. "Now it is for you to want. And if you want, we shall have an art!"
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
You can accomplish the impossible!
Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt, Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study.
Indeed it is so.
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
It cannot be otherwise!—
The Diary of Richard Wagner: The Brown Book 1865-1882.
The men who utter the criticisms have never felt the great pulse of the world.
Woodrow Wilson, Excerpt from Presidential Address Delivered at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.
So saying, he bowed and walked off.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
Astonishment, and loud applause.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
It was, as the loquacious Strauss . . .
Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976.
. . . who was active on the podium one way or another all his long life, . . .
Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Conductors.
. . .wrote later:
Jim Bishop, FDR’s Last Year: April 1944-April 1945.
It was . . . “like giving Heifetz a Stradivarius. . . . ”
Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976.
“ . . . The son of a bitch . . .
William Faulkner, Light in August (Chapter 9).
. . . knows how to play . . .
Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976.
. . . his audience . . . ”
William Faulkner, Light in August (Chapter 19).
And having thus gaily disposed of the difficulty of the moment, . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
—namely . . .
National Public Radio Online, Bush, Gore Take The Debate on the Road.
. . . the inauguration of . . .
Mark Twain, Christian Science.
. . . a worldwide campaign . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
. . . to attract the attention of as many people as possible . . .
Johannes Ehrmann, Float Like a Butterfly.
. . . the Micawber of Bayreuth could breathe freely again . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
—for a while.
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
That evening, . . .
Edgar B.P. Darlington, The Circus Boys on the Plains.
. . . alone in his study, . . .
Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister.
. . . Wagner . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . .wrote to a friend:
Bryan Magee, The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy.
“In . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl quoting The Diaries of Theodor Herzl.
. . . Bayreuth . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . I founded . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl quoting The Diaries of Theodor Herzl.
. . . ‘the inmost community of our endeavors and thoughts under one flag’
Bryan Magee, The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy quoting Nietzsche, Letter to Wagner.
If I said this aloud today. I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will agree.”
Amos Elon, Herzl quoting The Diaries of Theodor Herzl.
Wagner did not stimulate admirers alone—he stimulated a cause. To some extent he was the cause. One can argue that in building his own theater in Bayreuth he took the Romantic idea of genius—of the artist as a culture hero—further than any artist in the nineteenth century, and the advancement of his work therefore became a crusade for many people who believed in the idea.
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
At the beginning of most great enterprises stands an adventure, a defiance of time, or law, or some established notion. This is true of most new . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl.
. . . sweeping theories of human renewal.
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
There is always a trace of quixotism when devotion to a cause is extreme, logical, and saintlike.
Amos Elon, Herzl.
Wagner . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . went beyond that. He walked a tightrope between charlatanism and genius. Throughout his career as a self-appointed leader of men he ran a very real danger of exposure as a fraud even as he was hailed as a . . .
Amos Elon, Herzl.
. . . cultural . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics
. . . savior. In his negotiations with kings, emperors, and ministers of state, even in his dealings with his closest disciples, he took great risks; he had to conjure up an entire world of make-believe in place of the real power he lacked.
Amos Elon, Herzl.
'Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act falls the shadow.' The problem posed by T.S. Eliot the poet was precisely what now confronted Richard Wagner the opera composer. In his case, bridging the gulf between inspiration and realization was not a solitary activity with pen and paper but a live endeavour involving hundreds of fallible, wilful human beings and a variety of art forms.
Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival.
My pen delays . . . Stops. Why write any of this? Why make a record? Answer: habit. To turn life to words is to make life yours to do with as you please, instead of the other way round. Words translate and transmute raw life, make bearable the unbearable. So at the end, as in the beginning, there is only The Word.
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
August 1876
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries.
Four years have passed since I last saw . . .
Thomas Hardy, The Hand of Ethelberta.
. . . the crater . . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . on the hill.
Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd.
I could not say that for me four years is the equivalent of all eternity.
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!
Charles Dickens, Bleak House.
The Ring attracted four crowned heads to Bayreuth: the emperors Wilhelm I of Germany and Dom Pedro II of Brazil; the king of Bavaria, . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . one of the event’s . . .
Jeffrey Birnbaum, Al Gore’s Clinton Moment.
. . . most generous financial supporters—
Martin McLaughlin, The Middle Class “Left” and the Clinton Campaign.
. . . who only returned for the third series of performances because he had no wish to meet any of his fellow monarchs; and the king of Wòrttemberg.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
A newspaper clipping enclosed;
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Monday, July 31, 1882) (editors’ emendation).
These devotees would worship in an atmosphere of devotion.
Mark Twain, At the Shrine of St. Wagner.
At a respectful distance were many country-folk, and people from the city, waiting for any chance glimpse of royalty that might offer.
Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper.
So gorgeous was the spectacle on . . .
Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August.
. . . that afternoon . . .
William Faulkner, Light in August.
. . . in August, when . . .
Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
“Four kings!”
Jack London, Burning Daylight.
. . . rode up to the Hill . . .
Oral History Interview with Clark M. Clifford.
. . . to enter the “Wagner” theater . . .
Hermann Hesse, Klein and Wagner.
. . . that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe could not keep back gasps of admiration.
Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August.
Murmurs:
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
Look up, . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (Part II).
“There!”
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
“It is like heaven!”
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
I happened to look up and saw . . .
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying.
. . . at the top of the hill, . . .
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
. . . plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun.
Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August.
It was a story of another age and you could hardly believe that this . . .
Somerset Maugham, Straight Flush.
. . . assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and . . .
Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August.
. . . had really taken part in it.
Somerset Maugham, Straight Flush.
I suddenly had a terrible itch to drive away the rich and resplendent, slash at the ropes, and let those others go flooding into the Temple.
Victor Gollancz, The Ring at Bayreuth: And Some Thoughts on Operatic Production.
"It seemed true indeed," Wagner wrote in his "Retrospect of the Stage Festivals of 1876," "that never had an artist been thus honored; for though it was not unknown for such a one to be summoned before an emperor and princes, no one could recall that an emperor and princes had ever come to him."
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
But Wagnerism ultimately departed from Wagner the man and became a movement in its own right—with principles, goals, and possibly doctrine often loosely related to the original source of the inspiration. . . .

With the foundation of the Festspielhaus [Festival Theater] and its opening in 1876, the movement acquired its Mother Church, and a full ecclesiastical bureaucracy in the form of the Richard Wagner Society. Organizations of that sort (generally independent of Bayreuth) appeared in many parts of Europe, from Vienna to Bologna to London, usually presenting concerts and literary meetings concerned with his music and ideas.
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
I had to laugh at first, but . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Thursday, May 11, 1871).
—if I may bring it in evidence—
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
I remember quite clearly R. saying to me . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Saturday, March 22, 1879).
. . . gazing up at the ceiling . . .
Franz Kafka, The Trial.
. . . as we entered . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Saturday, March 22, 1879).
. . . the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo had transcribed the Old Testament . . .
Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind: A Biographical Novel of Sigmund Freud.
"This is no place for lightheartedness—it is like my theater."
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Saturday, March 22, 1879).
This apercu may serve as an . . .
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
. . . insight into . . .
Henry James, A Bundle of Letters.
. . . Wagner's theater-temple . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . complete with a guru . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . a theater of religion . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . that promised entry into a world sealed off from the uninitiated.
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
He believed that he had discovered the ultimate truth, and he had the ability and personal magnetism to convert others to his vision.
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
He would have liked nothing better than a worldwide league of disciples whose faith in him was even greater than his own.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
For fifteen years or so after . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . the death of its . . .
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans.
. . . onlie begetter . . .
Thomas Thorpe, Dedication to the Sonnets of William Shakespeare.
. . . the movement maintained itself in varying states of cohesion.
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
He wondered once . . .
Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Three Taverns.
. . . if he would, perhaps, be entirely forgotten, displaced by someone who would make things easier for the audience.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
In truth, what . . .
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo.
. . . was the sense of his life if people walked out of the theatre and forgot him?
E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime.
Of course the . . .
Joseph Conrad, The Arrow of Gold.
. . . movement . . .
Steven Peikin, Gastrointestinal Health.
. . . did not die in a single instant but rather in the fashion of a dramatic hero who manages to utter a few dozen final lines after being mortally wounded.
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
One cannot choose but wonder.
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
What happened?
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
I had somehow the impression that he was . . .
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer.
—how shall I define it?—
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
He had become . . .
Peter Schrag, Test of Loyalty.
. . . an anachronism.
Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Conductors.
The world had changed.
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
His . . .
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
. . . fall from grace . . .
Rich Cohen, Lake Effect.
. . . was, I may say, an epoch.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that secret away.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
He did not present himself merely as a composer, or even as a composer who dabbled in social theory, but as a cultural messiah. Speaking the language of the philosopher and gathering disciples like a prophet, he claimed a "holy gift" by which he would cleanse and heal the fallen world of not only the opera but society at large . . .
Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics.
. . . confident in the power of the Word ultimately to rout the enemies of civilization.
Elmer Bendiner, A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations.