"I hid here till
the stone shut down upon thee, and now I am beside thee till the end."

Radames beat wildly upon the stone above. He called for help. He tried
with his great strength to raise the deadly stone with his shoulders,
only to sink down, exhausted and horrified. He could not save her. The
chorus sung by priests began above; Aida was already dying. At least
she would not live slowly to starve. And while Amneris appeared above
in black garments, dying of grief for Radames, and threw herself upon
the stone, Radames held the dying Aida in his arms and waited for
death.

"Peace," Amneris moaned while lying prostrate above on the altar
stone.

"Peace," and while the women were dying and Radames losing his senses
below, the priests of Isis chanted, "Peace," the light faded out, and
the tragedy ended.

WAGNER

Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, on the 22d of May, 1813. His
father was Chief of Police and his mother was Johanna Rosina Bertz.

His brothers and sisters were distinguished singers or actors; thus
love of dramatic art was common to all the family. His father died and
his mother married an actor, Ludwig Geyer. The stepfather became very
fond of young Richard and intended to make a painter of him, but upon
hearing him play some of his sister's piano pieces Geyer wondered if
it were possible that he had the gift of music!

Wagner was a poor scholar during his school days, the only thing he
especially enjoyed being literature, mainly Shakespeare, Sophocles,
and Aeschylus; and about the time the dramatic philosophies of these
men filled his attention, he wrote a great drama in which there were
forty-two characters, every one of whom was killed or died in the
course of the play, so that he was compelled to finish his performance
with the spectres of his original characters. Later he wished to put
music to that remarkable drama, and he did so, much to the distraction
of his family. It was actually performed. He thus described his
composition:

This was the culmination of my absurdities. What I did,
above all things wrong, was a roll _fortissimo_ upon the
kettle-drums, which returned regularly every four bars
throughout the composition. The surprise which the public
experienced changed first to unconcealed ill-humour, and
then into laughter, which greatly mortified me.

It was under Theodor Weinlig's teaching that he finally developed a
fixed purpose of compositi