ess itself in the plot and the incidents of the
libretto, although in them it is empty of value or passion.
Schickaneder, in fact, constructed a mere diagram to which Mozart gave
life. The life is all in the music, but the diagram has its use, in that
it supplies a shape, which we recognize, to the life of the music. The
characters live in the music, but in the words they tell us something
about themselves which enables us to understand their musical speech
better. Papageno tells us that he is a bird-catcher and a child of
nature. The words are labels, but through them we pass more quickly to
an understanding of his song. Only we shall miss that understanding if
we try to reach it through the words, if we look for the story of the
opera in them. In the words the events of the opera have no connexion
with each other. There is no reason why one should follow another. The
logic of it is all in the music, for the music creates a world in which
events happen naturally, in which one tune springs out of another, or
conflicts with it, like the forces of nature or the thoughts and actions
of man. This world is the universe as Mozart sees it; and the whole
opera is an expression of his peculiar faith. It is therefore a
religious work, though free from that meaningless and timid solemnity
which we associate with religion. Mozart, in this world, was like an
angel who could not but laugh, though without any malice, at all the
bitter earnestness of mankind. Even the wicked were only absurd to him;
they were naughty children whom, if one had the spell, one could enchant
into goodness. And in _The Magic Flute_ the spell works. It works in the
flute itself and in Papageno's lyre when the wicked negro Monostatos
threatens him and Tamino with his ugly attendants. Papageno has only to
play a beautiful childish tune on his lyre and the attendants all march
backwards to an absurd goose-step in time with it. They are played off
the stage; and the music convinces one that they must yield to it. So,
we feel if we had had the music, we could have made the Prussians march
their goose-step back to Potsdam; so we could play all solemn perversity
off the stage of life. If we had the music--but there is solemn
perversity in us too; by reason of which we can hardly listen to the
music, much less play it, hardly listen to it or understand it even
when Mozart makes it for us. For he had the secret of it; he was a
philosopher who spoke in music and so simp