‘For myself, I have the most intimate familiarity with Wagner’s mental processes. At every stage in my life I come back to him. Only a new nobility can introduce the new civilization for us. If we strip “Parsifal” of every poetic element, we learn from it that selection and renewal are possible only amid the continuous tension of a lasting struggle. A world-wide process of segregation is going on before our eyes. Those who see in struggle the meaning of life, gradually mount the steps of a new nobility. Those who are in search of peace and order through dependence, sink, whatever their origin, to the inert masses. The masses, however, are doomed to decay and self-destruction. In our world-revolutionary turning-point the masses are the sum total of the sinking civilization and its dying representatives. We must allow them to die with their kings, like Amfortas.’
