ical matters, has drowned the
few isolated sighs and groans which super-delicate and sensitive people
have given vent to over the sad untruthfulness and tastelessness of
those works--"trifling," according to their ideas. And there are
instances on record of some of those very people who, in the height of
their calm, contemptuous, aristocratic impassibility and supercilious
scorn of the whole thing, have been so carried away by the infection of
the roars of laughter of the "baser" folk about them that they have
burst out laughing in the most deplorable way themselves, declaring
that they had no idea what they were laughing at.'

"_Ferdinand_. 'Wouldn't Tieck, if he had chosen, have written splendid
opera plots, according to your definition of them?'

"_Ludwig_. 'No doubt, being a true romantic poet; and I remember I did
once think of writing music to a plot of his. But though the subject
was well adapted for music, the work was too diffuse and lengthy; not
concentrated enough. It was called "The Monster of the Enchanted
Forest," if I remember rightly.'

"_Ferdinand_. 'That reminds me of another difficulty which we meet with
in writing for you composers: I mean the extraordinary brevity and
conciseness which you insist upon. All our efforts to portray this or
that situation or burst of passion in properly descriptive language are
so much wasted labour. You will have the whole affair comprised in a
line or two; and even these few lines you twist about and turn
upside-down just as you take it in your heads.'

"_Ludwig_. 'I think the writer of the words of an opera ought to be
something like a scene painter, and paint his picture correctly as
regards the drawing, but in broad, powerful lines; then the music will
be what will make it appear in proper light and shade, and in correct
perspective, so that it shall have a proper effect of life, and what
seemed only meaningless dashes of colour prove to be forms instinct
with meaning, standing out prominently in relief.'

"_Ferdinand_. 'So that what we have to do is to give you a sketch
merely, not a finished poem?'

"_Ludwig_. 'No, no; that is not what I mean at all! It is scarcely
necessary to say that the poet of opera must observe, as regards the
arrangement, the disposition, of the whole, all the rules essential to
dramatic composition; but what he has to take special care for is to so
order his scenes that the subject-matter may unfold itself, clearly and
intelligibly