sing breath of the sea, the atmosphere of the Church and Cesar Franck
is evident. Who is this Stranger?

He tells us in the second act.

"My name? I have none. I am He who dreams; I am He who loves. I
have passed through many countries, and sailed on many seas, loving
the poor and needy, dreaming of the happiness of the brotherhood of
man."

"Where have I seen you?--for I know you."

"Where? you ask. But everywhere: under the warm sun of the East, by
the white oceans of the Pole.... I have found you everywhere, for
you are Beauty itself, you are immortal Love!"

The music is not without a certain nobility, and bears the imprint of
the calm, strong spirit of belief. But I was sorry that the story was
only about a mere entity when I had been getting interested in a man. I
can never understand the attraction of this kind of symbolism. Unless it
is allied to sublime powers of creation in metaphysics or morals--such
as that possessed by a Goethe or an Ibsen--I do not see what such
symbolism can add to life, though I see very well what it takes away
from it. But it is, after all, a matter of taste; and, anyway, there is
nothing in this story to astonish us greatly. This transition from
realism to symbolism is something in opera with which we have grown only
too familiar since the time of Wagner.

But the story does not stop there; for we leave symbolic abstractions to
enter a still more extraordinary domain, which is removed even farther
still from realities.

There had been some talk at the beginning of an emerald that sparkled in
the Stranger's cap; and this emerald now takes its turn in the action of
the piece. "It had sparkled formerly in the bows of the boat that
carried the body of Lazarus, the friend of our Master, Jesus; and the
boat had safely reached the port of the Phoceans--without a helm or
sails or oars. For by this miraculous stone a clean and upright heart
could command the sea and the winds." But now that the Stranger has done
amiss, by falling a victim to passion, its power is gone; so he gives it
to Vita.

Then follows a real scene in fairyland. Vita stands before the sea and
invokes it in an incantation full of weird and beautiful vocal music:
"O sea! Sinister sea with your angry charm, gentle sea with your kiss of
death, hear me!" And the sea replies in a song. Voices mingle with the
orchestra in a symphony of increasing anger. Vita swears she will give
he