We had thought that the last word in the matter had been said when Baireuth (Queen Cosima I) allowed the publication of Wagner's diaries and love-letters to Mathilde--though her complete correspondence is as yet unpublished. But Bélart is one of the busiest among the German critical coral builders. He has dug into musty newspapers and letters, and gives at the close of his work a long list of authorities. Yet nothing startlingly new comes out of his researches. We knew that Mathilde Wesendonk (or Wesendonck) was the first love of Wagner, a genuine and noble passion, not his usual self-seeking philandering. We also knew that Otto Wesendonk behaved like a patient husband and a gentleman--any other man would have put a bullet in the body of the thrice impertinent genius; knew, too, that Tristan and Isolde was born of this romance. But there is a mass of fresh details, petty backstairs gossip, all the tittle-tattle beloved of such writers, that in company with Julius Kapp's Wagner und die Frauen, makes Bélart's new book a valuable one for reference.
Kapp, who has written a life of Franz Liszt, goes Bélart one better in hinting that the infatuated couple transformed their idealism into realism. Bélart does not believe this; neither does Emil Ludwig, the latest critical commentator on Wagner. But neither critic gives the profoundest proof that the love of Richard and Mathilde was an exalted, platonic one, _i. e._, the proof psychologic. I firmly believe that if Mathilde Wesendonk had eloped with Wagner in 1858, as he begged her to do, Tristan and Isolde might not have been finished; at all events, the third act would not have been what it now is. A mighty longing is better for the birth of great art than facile happiness. For the first time in his selfish unhappy life Wagner realised Goethe's words of wisdom: "Renounce thou shalt; shalt renounce." It was a bitter sacrifice, but out of its bitter sweetness came the honey and moonlight of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner suffered, Mathilde suffered, Otto Wesendonk suffered, and last, but not least, Minna Wagner, the poor pawn in his married game, suffered to distraction. Let us begin with a quotation on the last page but three of Bélart's book: "Remarked Otto Wesendonk to a friend: 'I have hunted Wagner from my threshold....'"