serious frame of mind, in which condition
he could well understand the Lohengrin material. Hitherto, in the
mystic twilight of its mediaeval presence, it had inspired him with
some degree of suspicion, but he now recognized in it a romance,
wherein was embodied the longing desires of pure human nature, and the
imperative necessity of love, as well as its artistic meaning.

The fundamental trait of this legend, as in "Tannhaeuser" and in the
flight of Odysseus from the embraces of sensualism, had already
appeared in the Greek myth of Zeus and Semele. Like the God from the
cloudy Olympian realms, so Lohengrin from the boundless ether to which
Christian imagination had assigned Olympus, descends to the human
female in the natural longing of love. There was an old tradition in
the legends of the people who dwelt near the sea, to the effect that
on its blue surface an unknown man of indescribable grace and beauty
approaches, whose resistless charms win every heart. He disappears
again, retreating with the waves, whenever it is sought to discover
who he is. So also in the Scheldt region once appeared a handsome
hero, drawn by a swan. He rescued a persecuted, innocent maiden, and
married her, but when she asked him who he was and whence he came, he
was compelled to forsake her. How does our poet interpret the legend?

Lohengrin, the son of Parcival, the royal guardian of the Holy Grail,
who represents the ideal in humanity, although he was probably
originally identical with the German Sun-god, who longs to rest in the
arms of night--this Lohengrin seeks the wife that believes in him, who
will not ask who he is and whence he came, but will love him as he is,
and simply as he appears to her. He sought the wife, to whom he need
not declare himself, need not justify himself, but who will love him
without question. Like Zeus, he had to conceal his divine nature, for
only in this way could he know that he was really loved, and not
simply admired, which was all he longed for when he descended from his
ethereal heights to the warm earth below. He longs to be human, to
experience the warm feelings of humanity, and gain a loving heart;
with these longings he descended from his blissful, lonely heights,
when he heard the cry of this heart for help in the midst of mankind.
The halo of his higher nature, however, betrays him. He can not but
appear as miraculous. The staring of the vulgar and the rancor of the
envious cloud the heart of t