Even "the crystal spirit" had his The surest sign that a writer has made his mark is the adoption of his surname in common parlance as an adjective immediately significant even to those who barely know his work, or merely know of it.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was in his own day, and remains on the bicentennial of his birth, the operatic composer most important to philosophers, literary men, honest-to-goodness intellectuals, and the usual assortment of those impressed above al