e Brotherhood of
the Grail. Beside this inconsequence, all other inconsequences seem as
nothing. One might ask, for instance, how, seeing that no man can save
his brother's soul, Parsifal saves the soul of Amfortas? This is a
fallacy that held Wagner all his life. We find it in "The Flying
Dutchman"; it is avoided in "Tannhaeuser"--for, thank the gods,
Tannhaeuser is _not_ saved by that uninteresting young person
Elizabeth; it plays a large part in the "Ring"; it is the culmination
of the drama of "Parsifal." Had Wagner thought more of Goethe and less
of the Frankfort creature who formulated his hypo-chondriacal
nightmares, and called the result a philosophy, he might have learnt
that no mentally sick man ever yet was cured save by the welling-up of
a flood of emotional energy in his own soul. He might also have seen
that Parsifal is as much the spirit that denies as Mephistopheles. But
these points, and many others, may go as, comparatively, nothings. The
first act of "Parsifal" is unsurpassable, the second is an
anti-climax, and the third, excepting the repentance of Kundry, which
is pathetic, and strikes one as true, a more saddening anti-climax.
There is one last thing to say before passing to the music, and this
is that "Parsifal" is commonly treated with respect as a Christian
drama--a superior "Sign of the Cross." I happen, oddly enough, to
know the four Gospels exceedingly well; and I find nothing of
"Parsifal" in them. It is much nearer to Buddhism in spirit, in
colour: it is a kind of Germanised metaphysical Buddhism.
Schopenhauer, not Christ, is the hero; and Schopenhauer was only a
decrepit Mephistopheles bereft of his humour and inverted creative
energy.

After hearing the whole opera twice, with all the supposed advantages
of the stage, the main thing borne in upon me is that the stage and
actors and accessories, far from increasing the effect of the music,
actually weaken it excepting in the first act. In that act there is
not a word or a note to alter. The story compels one's interest, and
the music is rich, tender, and charged with a noble passion. Even the
killing of the duck--it is supposed to be a swan, but it is really a
duck--is saved from becoming ludicrous by the deep sincerity of the
music of Gurnemanz's expostulations. The music, too, with the
magnificent trombone and trumpet calls and deep clangour of cathedral
bells, prevents one thinking too much of the absurdity of the trees,
mountains, a