



Produced by Dianne Bean





THE PERFECT WAGNERITE: A COMMENTARY ON THE NIBLUNG'S RING

by Bernard Shaw




Preface to the First German Edition

In reading through this German version of my book in the Manuscript of
my friend Siegfried Trebitsch, I was struck by the inadequacy of the
merely negative explanation given by me of the irrelevance of Night
Falls On The Gods to the general philosophic scheme of The Ring. That
explanation is correct as far as it goes; but, put as I put it, it now
seems to me to suggest that the operatic character of Night Falls On
The Gods was the result of indifference or forgetfulness produced by the
lapse of twenty-five years between the first projection of the work and
its completion. Now it is clear that in whatever other ways Wagner may
have changed, he never became careless and he never became indifferent.
I have therefore inserted a new section in which I show how the
revolutionary history of Western Europe from the Liberal explosion of
1848 to the confused attempt at a socialist, military, and municipal
administration in Paris in 1871 (that is to say, from the beginning of
The Niblung's Ring by Wagner to the long-delayed completion of Night
Falls On The Gods), demonstrated practically that the passing away of
the present order was going to be a much more complicated business than
it appears in Wagner's Siegfried. I have therefore interpolated a new
chapter which will perhaps induce some readers of the original English
text to read the book again in German.

For some time to come, indeed, I shall have to refer English readers to
this German edition as the most complete in existence.

My obligation to Herr Trebitsch for making me a living German author
instead of merely a translated English one is so great that I am bound
to point out that he is not responsible for my views or Wagner's, and
that it is as an artist and a man of letters, and not as a propagandist,
that he is conveying to the German speaking peoples political criticisms
which occasionally reflect on contemporary authorities with a European
reputation for sensitiveness. And as the very sympathy which makes his
translations so excellent may be regarded with suspicion, let me hasten
to declare I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my nature most
strongly. Not that I like the average German: nobody does, even in his
own country. But then the average man is not popular anywhere; and as
no German considers himself an average one, each reader will, as an
exceptional man, sympathize with my dislike of the common herd. And if
I cannot love the typical modern German, I can at least pity and
understand him. His worst fault is that he cannot see that it is
possible to have too much of a good thing. Being convinced that duty,
industry, education, loyalty, patriotism and respectability are
good things (and I am magnanimous enough to admit that they are not
altogether bad things when taken in strict moderation at the right
time and in the right place), he indulges in them on all occasions
shamelessly and excessively. He commits hideous crimes when crime is
presented to him as part of his duty; his craze for work is more ruinous
than the craze for drink; when he can afford secondary education for his
sons you find three out of every five of them with their minds lamed
for life by examinations which only a thoroughly wooden head could go
through with impunity; and if a king is patriotic and respectable (few
kings are) he puts up statues to him and exalts him above Charlemagne
and Henry the Fowler. And when he meets a man of genius, he
instinctively insults him, starves him, and, if possible, imprisons and
kills him.

Now I do not pretend to be perfect myself. Heaven knows I have to
struggle hard enough every day with what the Germans call my
higher impulses. I know too well the temptation to be moral, to be
self-sacrificing, to be loyal and patriotic, to be respectable and
well-spoken of. But I wrestle with it and--as far as human fraility will
allow--conquer it, whereas the German abandons himself to it without
scruple or reflection, and is actually proud of his pious intemperance
and self-indulgence. Nothing will cure him of this mania. It may end
in starvation, crushing taxation, suppression of all freedom to try
new social experiments and reform obsolete institutions, in snobbery,
jobbery, idolatry, and an omnipresent tyranny in which his doctor and
his schoolmaster, his lawyer and his priest, coerce him worse than
any official or drill sergeant: no matter: it is respectable, says the
German, therefore it must be good, and cannot be carried too far;
and everybody who rebels against it must be a rascal. Even the
Social-Democrats in Germany differ from the rest only in carrying
academic orthodoxy beyond human endurance--beyond even German endurance.
I am a Socialist and a Democrat myself, the hero of a hundred platforms,
one of the leaders of the most notable Socialist organizations in
England. I am as conspicuous in English Socialism as Bebel is in German
Socialism; but do you suppose that the German Social-Democrats tolerate
me? Not a bit of it. I have begged again and again to be taken to the
bosom of my German comrades. I have pleaded that the Super-Proletarians
of all lands should unite. I have pointed out that the German
Social-Democratic party has done nothing at its Congresses for the last
ten years except the things I told them to do ten years before, and that
its path is white with the bones of the Socialist superstitions I and my
fellow Fabians have slain. Useless. They do not care a rap whether I
am a Socialist or not. All they want to know is; Am I orthodox? Am I
correct in my revolutionary views? Am I reverent to the revolutionary
