strife with these helpless Fates who can only spin the net of
circumstance and environment round the feet of men. Why not, says
Erda then, go to the daughter I bore you, and take counsel with
her? He has to explain how he has cut himself off from her, and
set the fires of Loki between the world and her counsel. In that
case the First Mother cannot help him: such a separation is part
of the bewilderment that is ever the first outcome of her eternal
work of thrusting the life energy of the world to higher and
higher organization. She can show him no way of escape from the
destruction he foresees. Then from the innermost of him breaks
the confession that he rejoices in his doom, and now himself
exults in passing away with all his ordinances and alliances,
with the spear-sceptre which he has only wielded on condition of
slaying his dearest children with it, with the kingdom, the power
and the glory which will never again boast themselves as "world
without end." And so he dismisses Erda to her sleep in the heart
of the earth as the forest bird draws near, piloting the slain
son's son to his goal.

Now it is an excellent thing to triumph in the victory of the new
order and the passing away of the old; but if you happen to be
part of the old order yourself, you must none the less fight for
your life. It seems hardly possible that the British army at the
battle of Waterloo did not include at least one Englishman
intelligent enough to hope, for the sake of his country and
humanity, that Napoleon might defeat the allied sovereigns; but
such an Englishman would kill a French cuirassier rather than be
killed by him just as energetically as the silliest soldier, ever
encouraged by people who ought to know better, to call his
ignorance, ferocity and folly, patriotism and duty. Outworn life