Wagner flatters every nihilistic Buddhist instinct, and disguises it in music; he flatters every kind of Christianity and every religious form and expression of decadence... Richard Wagner,... a decrepit and desperate romantic, collapsed suddenly before the Holy Cross. Was there no German then with eyes to see, with pity in his conscience to bewail, this horrible spectacle? Am I then the only one he caused to suffer?... And yet I was one of the most corrupt Wagnerians... Well, I am the child of this age, just like Wagner,—i.e., a decadent; but I am conscious of it; I defended myself against
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