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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: It is clear after this utterance from the would-be
Schopenhaurian, that Wagner's explanations of his works for the
most part explain nothing but the mood in which he happened to be
on the day he advanced them, or the train of thought suggested to
his very susceptible imagination and active mind by the points
raised by his questioner. Especially in his private letters,
where his outpourings are modified by his dramatic consciousness
of the personality of his correspondent, do we find him taking
all manner of positions, and putting forward all sorts of cases
which must be taken as clever and suggestive special pleadings,
and not as serious and permanent expositions of his works. These
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