On a more subtle comparison it will perhaps be found, to the honour of Richard Wagner's German nature, that he has acted in everything with more strength, daring, severity, and elevation than a nineteenth century Frenchman could have done owing to the circumstance that we Germans are as yet nearer to barbarism than the French; perhaps even the most remarkable creation of Richard Wagner is not only at present, but for ever inaccessible, incomprehensible, and inimitable to the whole latter day Latin race: the figure of Siegfried, that man, who is probably far too free, too hard, too cheerful, too healthy, too for the taste of old and mellow civilized nations.