_Pelleas et
Melisande_, I would like to draw your attention to a form of thought
which is not confined to France, but which is common nowadays in a
section of the more distinguished members of European society, and which
has found expression in _Pelleas et Melisande_. The atmosphere in which
Maeterlinck's drama moves makes one feel the melancholy resignation of
the will to Fate. We are shown that nothing can change the order of
events; that, despite our proud illusions, we are not master of
ourselves, but the servant of unknown and irresistible forces, which
direct the whole tragicomedy of our lives. We are told that no man is
responsible for what he likes and what he loves--that is if he knows
what he likes and loves--and that he lives and dies without knowing why.

These fatalistic ideas, reflecting the lassitude of the intellectual
aristocracy of Europe, have been wonderfully translated into music by
Debussy; and when you feel the poetic and sensual charm of the music,
the ideas become fascinating and intoxicating, and their spirit is very
infectious. For there is in all music an hypnotic power which is able to
reduce the mind to a state of voluptuous submission.

The cause of the artistic success of _Pelleas et Melisande_ is of a more
specially French character, and marks a reaction that is at once
legitimate, natural, and inevitable; I would even say it is vital--a
reaction of French genius against foreign art, and especially against
Wagnerian art and its awkward representatives in France.

Is the Wagnerian drama perfectly adapted to German genius? I do not
think so; but that is a question which I will leave German musicians to
decide. For ourselves, we have the right to assert that the form of
Wagnerian drama is antipathetic to the spirit of French people--to their
artistic taste, to their ideas about the theatre, and to their musical
feeling. This form may have forced itself upon us, and, by the right of
victorious genius, may have strongly influenced the French mind, and may
do so again; but nothing will ever make it anything but a stranger in
our land.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the differences of taste. The
Wagnerian ideal is, before everything else, an ideal of power. Wagner's
passional and intellectual exaltation and his mystic sensualism are
poured out like a fiery torrent, which sweeps away and burns all before
it, taking no heed of barriers. Such an art cannot be bound by ordinary
rules; it ha