This theological redemption is not redemption in Wagner’s sense. With him it has never any clearly recognisable import, and serves only to denote something beautiful and grand, which he does not more closely specify. At the outset the word has evidently made a deep impression on his imagination, and he subsequently uses it like a minor chord, let us say _a_, _c_, _e_, which is likewise without definite significance, but, nevertheless, awakens emotion and peoples consciousness with floating presentations. With Wagner someone is constantly being ‘redeemed.’ If (in the _Art-work of the Future_) the art of painting ceases to paint pictures, and produces thenceforth only decorations for the theatre, this is its ‘redemption.’ In the same way the music accompanying a poem is a ‘redeemed’ music. Man is ‘redeemed’ when he loves a woman, and the people is ‘redeemed’ when it plays at the drama. His compositions also turn upon ‘redemption.’ Nietzsche[196] has already remarked this, and makes merry over it, if with repulsively superficial witticisms. ‘Wagner,’ he says, ‘has meditated on nothing so much as on redemption’ (a wholly false assertion, since Wagner’s redemption-twaddle is certainly no result of meditation, but only a mystical echo of childish emotions); ‘his opera is the opera of redemption. With him someone is always wanting to be redeemed--now a male, now a female.... Who, if not Wagner, teaches us that innocence has a predilection for redeeming interesting sinners (the case of _Tannhäuser_)? Or that even the Wandering Jew will be redeemed and become sedentary when he marries (the case of _The Flying Dutchman_)? Or that depraved old wantons prefer to be redeemed by chaste youths (the case of _Kundry_)? Or that beauteous maidens like best to be redeemed by a knight who is a Wagnerian (the case in _Meistersinger_)? Or that even married women like to be redeemed by a knight (the case of _Isolde_)? Or that the ancient god, after having morally compromised himself in every respect, is redeemed by a free-thinker and an immoral character (the case in the _Niebelungen_)? How particularly admirable is this last profundity! Do you understand it? As for me, defend me from understanding it.’