Significant Moments: Part 7

One should not dodge one's tests, though they may be the most dangerous game one could play and are tests that are taken in the end before no witness or judge but ourselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
To this opinion I am given wholly
And this is wisdom's final say:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
_________________________________________________________________

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.

___________________________________________________

And Freud?
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
Freud's immortality was linked to his self-image as a scientific explorer who discovers a truth which conquers the world after being initially rejected. This image combined science with social movement, in precisely the form taken by psychoanalysis. In pursuing that goal Freud rejected the identity of the artist . . .
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will.
With the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams Freud believed that he had presented the world with a new vision. In the autumn of 1902, at a time when Freud's relationship with Fliess was in its death throes, a general practitioner, Wilhelm Stekel, proposed to Freud that some of his admirers form a discussion group. "I was the apostle of Freud who was my Christ!" he later recalled. Freud liked the idea, and sent out postcards to three other men, including Dr. Alfred Adler, and the Psychological Wednesday Society was formed.
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
He agreed with Stekel that psychoanalysis needed such a forum to remain vital and to serve as the basis for recruiting new members. After his break with Wilhelm Fliess, Freud may also have needed a following for his own psychological sustenance. The format of Freud’s evening seminars—designated the Wednesday Psychological Society—followed the old rabbinic traditions.
Charles B. Strozier, Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst.
Though the God of Israel and I had parted at least temporary company, I missed the moments of exaltation and the friends with whom I could share it. . . . It was not surprising that I soon found people and activities to take up the spiritual slack.
Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm.
After a presentation, the names of those present were drawn from an urn to determine the order of commentary. Many rabbis had used just such a procedure to insure that students were not overwhelmed by the comments of the most learned teachers. At Freud’s home the discussions were lively, often heated, and no matter when he spoke still completely dominated by the presence of Freud. By 1908 the Wednesday group evolved into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, the model for countless such groups around the world . . . . A loosely formed group with seemingly only intellectual interests, in other words, was transformed within a decade by its charismatic leader into an enduring institution, on the one hand, and a secret band of disciples committed to spreading the word, on the other.
Charles B. Strozier, Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst.
The disciples . . .
Jules Verne, Around The World in 80 Days.
. . . were bound together by their secrecy against the world, their faith in Freud's theory, and their personal devotion to their leader.
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of
Psychoanalysis.
They found in themselves the same power that the Master found in himself, and they used it as he had used his power.
Mark Twain, Christian Science.
Freud happily . . .
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
. . . presented . . .
Joseph Conrad, The Arrow of Gold.
. . . each of the Committee members with an ancient intaglio . . .
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
. . . (new word) . . .
Gore Vidal, 1876: A Novel.
. . . from his collection of antiquities. These they subsequently had mounted in gold rings. Freud himself wore one incised with the head of Jupiter. Traditionally intaglios had been used as seals on contracts before written signatures were used to certify important documents. The rings were pledges of eternal union, symbolizing the allegiance of a band of brothers to their symbolic father, Freud the ring-giver.
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
I tell you frankly that I firmly believe that there has always been such a man among those who stood at the head of the movement.
Feodor Dostoyevski, The Brothers Karamazov.
In bestowing rings on his followers, he seemed to see himself as a towering figure in a Wagnerian opera.
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
Indeed it was . . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . like the impossible things one reads about in books, and never sees in life.
Mark Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
Freud was beginning to envisage a worldwide psychoanalytic movement, far broader than the narrow confines of Vienna.
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
Unlike most scientists, content to scatter their ideas like seeds on stony ground, Freud envisioned a movement to nurture and disseminate his radical truth.
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will.
“It’s not enough that you move through the world—you must change it to suit your expectation,” he says.
John Lahr, The Ringmaster: The Garish and Giddy World of Baz Luhrmann.
The Berlin clinic "for the psychoanalytic treatment of nervous ailments" and its associated institute were the first realization of Freud's call to utopia.
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
The past teaches us that in order to succeed, a movement like this must not be a mere philosophy, it must be a religion . . .
Mark Twain, Christian Science.
The guidelines of the institute mandated a training analysis; this requirement was still controversial elsewhere, but in Berlin no one who had not been analyzed was to analyze anyone else. This training analysis was expected to take, the guidelines said, "at least a year"—a recommendation betraying a therapeutic optimism that now seems sheer frivolity. But even with such a short analysis, candidacy was a time of testing that corresponded, as Hanns Sachs put it "to the novitiate in a church." Sachs's metaphor assimilating the institute to a religious institution was facile and unfortunate; it mirrored a common charge against psychoanalysis. But one can see why he used it. Freud would protest to Ernest Jones, "I am not fond of acting the Pontifex maximus." But he protested in vain.
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
______________________________________________________________

A man of protean interests and Promethean will, . . .
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will.
. . . Freud profoundly distrusted democracy in professional organizations, . . .
Joseph Reppen, Memory and Archives: A London Conference.
—and in this I am supported by the opinions of others—
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism.
. . . often exhibited a dictatorial nature, as in his wish that the president of the . . .
Joseph Reppen, Memory and Archives: A London Conference.
. . . International Psychoanalytic Association . . .
Sigmund Freud, History of the Psychoanalytic Movement.
. . . be elected for life.
Joseph Reppen, Memory and Archives: A London Conference.
And those letters, . . .
Raja Ghoshal, Ups and Downs of Love.
Yes!
Emile Zola, J’accuse . . . !
Back to the letters.
Irvin D. Yalom, Love’s Executioner.
Freud, a prolific letter writer, . . .
Joseph Reppen, Memory and Archives: A London Conference.
. . . corresponded almost daily. He . . .
Irvin D. Yalom, Love’s Executioner.
. . . answered every letter he received, generally within twenty-four hours, and wrote upward of 35,000 letters.
Joseph Reppen, Memory and Archives: A London Conference.
I suspected that . . .
Irvin D. Yalom, Love’s Executioner.
. . . for Freud writing was a vital necessity, a sort of writing cure for lifting depression. Freud once wrote that he had to recuperate from psychoanalysis by writing.
Joseph Reppen, Memory and Archives: A London Conference.
His published work comprises some two million words—twice as much as that of Shakespeare’s output.
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will.
After the Second World War, at a time when there was little interest in Sigmund Freud's life history, a small group of psychoanalysts—Hartmann, Kris, Lewin, Nunberg, and myself—became alarmed by the fact that a large number of letters by Freud had been lost as a result of the ravages brought about by the war. It was feared that if no measures were taken, the surviving documentation of Freud's life would be . . .
Janet Malcolm, In the Freud Archives quoting K.R. Eissler.
. . . dispersed throughout the world . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
. . . and most of it would be lost to future research. The need for a Sigmund Freud Archives was thus recognized.
Janet Malcolm, In the Freud Archives quoting K.R. Eissler.
What all this means to us at the present time is this:
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
Dr. Kurt Eissler, . . .
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Series Z: An Archival Fantasy.
. . . in due course, . . .
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage.
. . . gathered about him a body of . . .
Richard Wagner, Parzival: First Prose Sketch.
. . . colleagues . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . to serve the . . .
Richard Wagner, Parzival: First Prose Sketch.
. . . newly founded . . .
Lord Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament.
. . . Freud Archives.
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
Starting from the very bottom, . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . and with a strength of spirit and character which is rare among human beings . . .
Lucy Beckett, Richard Wagner: Parsifal quoting Erich Heller.
. . . the much maligned Dr. Eissler . . .
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Series Z: An Archival Fantasy.
. . . sought and secured . . .
Jerome K. Jerome, The Cost of Kindness.
. . . historical materials . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . that were destined eventually for the Freud Archives under the custodianship of the Library of Congress . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . where they would remain . . .
Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd.
. . . inaccessible to every other living man.
H.G. Wells, The New Accelerator.
The problem was that scholars and university researchers were convinced that there were deep, dark secrets locked away in the . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . vaulted niche . . .
Richard Wagner, Parzival: First Prose Sketch.
. . . of the Archives. Eissler would not permit anybody access to more than a few of the . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . supremely wondrous wealth of . . .
Richard Wagner, Parsifal.
. . . files in the library.
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
Naturally . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . researchers . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . found it difficult to . . .
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage.
. . . accept this demand.
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
There were catalogues . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . of the materials . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . with intriguing information, but most of the actual material could not be seen for . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . a hundred years:
Lord Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King: The Holy Grail.
What on earth could there be in the Archives that was so sinister, so dangerous, that it could not be seen for a hundred years?
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.

_______________________________________________________

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
T.S. Eliot, Excerpt from Burnt Norton.
If one insists upon a lesson from history, it lies here, as discovered by . . .
Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
. . . Hermann Hesse . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.
. . . when he was writing a book on the. . .
Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
. . . world of the remote future . . .
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
. . . Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . while dodging the Gestapo during World War II. “Certain ways of behavior,” he wrote, “certain reactions against fate, throw mutual light upon each other.”
Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
The longer we consider Hesse’s novel, the more clearly we realize that it is not a telescope focused on an imaginary future, but a mirror reflecting with disturbing sharpness a paradigm of present reality.
Theodore Ziolkowski, Introduction to Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
Our predecessors and founders began their work in a shattered world at the end of the Age of Wars . . .
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . wrote Hesse.
Theodore Ziolkowski, Introduction to Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
We cannot think clearly about the crises of Western Culture, about the origins and forms of totalitarian movements in the European heartland and the recurrence of world war, without bearing sharply in mind that Europe, . . .
George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle.
. . . around the beginning of the twenty-fifth century . . .
Theodore Ziolkowski, Introduction to Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
. . . was damaged in its centers of life. Decisive reserves of intelligence, of nervous resilience, of political talent, had been annihilated.
George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle.
Western civilization . . .
The American Tradition in Literature.
. . . of which we are the heirs, that authentic ancient ideal had patently come near to being entirely lost.
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius quoting Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
This vacuum at the end of a violent era concerned only with superficial things, this sharp universal hunger for a new beginning and the restoration of order, gave rise to our Castalia. The insignificantly small, courageous, half-starved but unbowed band of true thinkers began to be aware of their potentialities. With heroic asceticism and self-discipline they set about establishing a constitution for themselves. Everywhere, even in the tiniest groups, they began working once more, clearing away the rubble of propaganda. Starting from the very bottom, they reconstructed intellectual life, education, research, culture.
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
At this point I expect to hear the reproach . . .
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism.
Why labor to elaborate and transmit culture if it did so little to stem the inhuman, if there were in it deep-set ambiguities which, at times, even solicited barbarism?
George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle.
I think this reproach would be unjustified.
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism.
The enterprise had its own logic outside reason and human needs.
George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle.
I have neither the special knowledge nor the capacity to decide on its practicability, to test the expediency of the methods employed or to measure the inevitable gap between intention and execution . . .
Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion.
. . . but the . . .
Mark Twain, Christian Science.
. . . grandeur of the plan and its importance for the future of human civilization cannot be disputed.
Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion.
Having made this reservation, we may proceed . . .
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.
. . . to observe that . . .
Henry James, The Bostonians.
. . . Their labors were fruitful. Out of those intrepid and impoverished beginnings they slowly erected a magnificent edifice. In the course of generations they created the Order, the Board of Educators, the elite schools, the Archives and collections, the technical schools and seminaries, and the Glass Bead Game.
Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game.
"Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game" is generally considered Hesse's magnum opus. A futuristic tale set in the post World War III society of the 25th century, it focuses on an elaborate, mind-taxing, yet strangely illuminating game in which players create metaphors, uncover relationships and discover associations—all drawn from the cultural and scientific knowledge of the ages. A wellspring of the sense of interconnectedness of all and everything, the game is played not only to enhance the intellect but to elevate human culture.
Don Oldenburg, Meeting of the Minds: Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game Hits the Net.
Violent, destructive, greedy, fallible as he may be, man retains his vision of order and resumes his search.
Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
But Hesse didn't explain how to play it, which now has made approximating it sort of a game designer's Holy Grail.
Don Oldenburg, Meeting of the Minds: Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game Hits the Net.
What is the Grail?
Richard Wagner, Parsifal.
. . . the Grail?
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
Holiest of . . .
John Milton, Paradise Regained.
. . . relics, it was for a long time mysteriously lost to the sinful world. When finally at a most harsh and hostile time, and in the face of opposition by unbelievers, the holy distress . . .
Richard Wagner, Parzival: First Prose Sketch.
. . . of a lost coherence . . .
George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle.
. . . was at its highest, heroes, inspired by God and imbued with holy charity, were moved by their fervour to go in quest of the vessel—that mysteriously consoling relic of which there was ancient report.
Richard Wagner, Parzival: First Prose Sketch.
It is quite clear that . . .
Siegfried Hessing, Freud’s Relation with Spinoza.
. . . certain sources of the Holy Grail legends . . .
The American Tradition in Literature.
. . . are stored . . .
Siegfried Hessing, Freud’s Relation with Spinoza.
. . . in pre-Christian myths, legends, and rituals concerning fertility. These primitive materials, reshaped by Christian influence, appeared as symbolic elements in the later stories of the Grail and of Arthur's knights. Eliot was particularly . . .
The American Tradition in Literature.
. . . impressed by . . .
Siegfried Hessing, Freud’s Relation with Spinoza.
. . . the North European myth of the Fisher King, ruler of a Waste Land blighted by an evil spell which also rendered the King impotent. The salvation of King and country awaited the advent of a knight of fabulous virtue and courage, . . .
The American Tradition in Literature.
. . . an unknowing bystander . . .
David Gress, From Plato to Nato.
. . . blundering into an alien realm he has no means of understanding . . .
Lucy Beckett, Richard Wagner: Parsifal.
. . . whose ordeals would provide answers for certain magical questions symbolic at once of religious purity and fertility.
The American Tradition in Literature.
The curious fact that the healing power could be released only by an unknowing bystander was the romantic remnant of the ancient ritual requirement that the new giver of health be an innocent youth; one who, in the earliest forms of the cult, was actually sacrificed so that his vigorous blood could fertilize the land.

The wounded and infertile, perhaps self-mutilated king sadly presiding over an infertile Waste Land was a powerful image. Though Eliot used that image only once in the poem, its entire text is an emotional and syntactical Waste Land, a series of abrupt, fragmented conversations, snatches of poetry, incantations, jangles, . . .
David Gress, From Plato to NATO.
. . . quotations, allusions, parodies, in tones sublime and scurrilous, . . .
Michael Steinberg, Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand.”
. . . and banal phrases of twentieth-century urban existence.
David Gress, From Plato to NATO.
Sometimes prose . . .
Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm.
. . . as a vehicle of “communication”
The American Tradition in Literature.
. . . seems inadequate to deal with such complexities.
Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm.
One might almost say that the more shadowy tradition has become, the more meet is it for the poet's use.
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism.