of several; and this, I suppose, might as fairly include the baby-hushing that mothers do so rhythmically all the world over as it surely does the "Yo! heave O!" of the sailors' songs. And what else? Human emotion? That is too capricious, and changes every instant on the whim of the individual. Human passion? That is both explosive and capricious, as well as individual. The talk of human intercourse? That varies with every fleeting phase of individual feeling.

I have tried hard to think this point out fairly and thoroughly, and I earnestly hope that some better equipped mind may be induced to take it up in the same spirit; for the longer and harder I think about it, the more am I convinced that, except under the conditions just specified, the visible action of human life naturally rebels against the bonds of rhythm instead of submitting to them; and that this natural antagonism is permanent and irreconcilable, because, as a rule, the working of human volition is not rhythmic, but the reverse, being always more or less spasmodic.

There could be cited abundant instances in support of this all-important postulate; so let us go on to see where we stand after taking these consecutive steps, first placing them in close sequence, that their relations may be clearly perceived.

(1.) We have seen that dramatic action, in order to be really artistic, must be true to natural human action.

(2.) We have seen that music does not and cannot escape from the bonds of rhythm.

(3.) We have seen that, with very few exceptions, natural human action does not and cannot submit to the bonds of rhythm.

(4.) Now what follows by logical necessity concerning dramatic action and music? Can we escape the conclusion that if dramatic action joins itself to music, it must lose its truth to natural

human action, and therefore its standing as fine art?

Here it is perhaps more than likely that some who may have admitted seeing steps 1, 2, and 3, and the need for ascending them, will, when confronted by step 4, say, "But we don't see that." Are they willing to see it, I wonder? Turning again to a sister art for an illustration, I expand that school maxim of the painters, "Paint what you see on close and honest scrutiny, and not what you would like to see." If any students or painters are color-blind, or astigmatic, or otherwise incapable of seeing truly, that is a personal limitation entitling them to pity, and to that extent relieving them from condemnation. But if any refuse honest scrutiny, and insist on painting what they would like to see, whether they really see it or not, such persons are ruled by and have the courage of their propensities, not their convictions; and this, translated into those esoteric terms so dear to the claimants, would probably be written, "They have a great deal of temperament."

I think this applies equally to those musicians who, on reaching step 4, stop, and decline to ascend the logical staircase any farther, seeking progress sideways instead of upward; but they will doubtless be confirmed in their doings on being told that they are in this matter in the same category with Richard Wagner, for that is precisely what he did.

Let us look at some of the conspicuous facts in the career of this genius (for that he surely was), with all possible sidelights let in on them; and one of the brightest, I think, shines from his parentage and the principles of heredity. Wagner came of a theatrical family; he was born and bred in a theatrical atmosphere and environment; his childish amusements were theatrical; he began his career in a theatre; he married an actress; his aims and ambitions were early centred entirely on theatrical success; and in short, love of the theatrical,

which was doubtless transmitted to him intensified, according to the admitted principle of heredity, soon became the dominating propensity and passion of his life, — placing the theatrician before and above the musician in him, obscuring his artistic judgment and insight, clouding his reasoning powers, and leading him into undignified and unfortunate displays of vanity, and into serious lapses from that nobility of personal life and deportment that should have grown from his great gifts, and probably would have done so had he not been possessed of the theatric devil from his childhood. His letters to his tailors, ordering and designing to the smallest detail the numerous brocaded silk and embroidered velvet dressing-gowns he wore when composing (could anything be more theatrical!) almost equal in number and in anxious importunity his letters to Liszt and other admirers, begging them for money to live on. The joyous enthusiasm and pride with which he devoted himself for months at a time to every item of stage costuming and stage carpentry seemed almost to exceed his satisfaction in writing his music.

Among his earlier achievements was a keen perception of the absurdities of the then popular and accepted opera libretto as literature; and as he was conscious of possessing a very prolific imagination and a copious command of language, he confidently undertook the task of producing for himself operatic poems of real literary value, and having coherent and consequent plots, with situations properly led up to and down from, and states of mind sufficiently explained and accounted for. He also perceived the absurdity of chopping up the action of an opera into a series of short musical pieces, scenas, arias, ariettas, and the like, with a complete cadence at the end of each, and a fresh musical start at the beginning of the next; and so he wrote his music with no cadence or stop at all from the beginning to the end of each entire act. He

was keen enough and bold enough and earnest enough in detecting and denouncing these particular absurdities, but why did he stop here? Why did he shut his eyes to those still remaining? Only because he was possessed of that theatric devil which continually blinded his artistic sight. And what did his methods of cure really accomplish? They added greatly to the literary value of the opera libretto and to the desirable continuity of the action; but, unfortunately, they made so many more words to be set to music because of these coherent and consequent and well-developed plots, and made the music itself so much longer, because that too could not now jump into suitability to dramatic changes, but must be appropriately and continuously developed into it, that the resulting performances also developed themselves into sittings of four and five and even six hours. Now, this is practically beyond the limits of physical endurance, and is as bad an artistic blunder as painting a picture with a part of it beyond the limits of physical vision. But the theatre was to Wagner the main purpose and business of his life, and he would not see that to his audiences it could be only an episode, meant for recreation. (And may it never be more, for that way national decadence lies.) Nor would he condescend to see the next upward step in the logical staircase he had started so bravely to ascend. But I think there is ample evidence that he soon became conscious of the remaining absurdities, even though his theatrical demon never allowed him to acknowledge them; for very soon he positively asserts publicly, in print and at length, that the only proper field for opera or musicdrama is to be found, not in actual human life, not even in historical human life, but in myth and legend; not in the natural, but in the supernatural. And thenceforth he deals only with mythic gods, demigods, heroes, valkyrs, Rhinemaidens, and such. His indwelling theatric devil makes him hold to the mar

riage of music to visible action, but his artistic consciousness is not totally depraved, for it feels the still remaining and inherent absurdities of even his amended work, and in order to forestall the further attacks of the criticism he has himself started he drops human action and makes his entire dramatis personæ superhuman, in order that nothing they do or say may be judged by human standards, and so found absurd; fondly hoping thus to get rid of the humanities that so trouble him. But he forgets, or else his theatric devil will not let him see, that, since he and his audiences are but mortals, he can only express, and they can only receive, his fine superhumanities in terms of the human. In spite of his calling his characters gods and goddesses and other fine names, we still see only remarkably queer men and women, and so the absurdities really remain, after all.

Wagner, of course, would not admit this, but loudly announced that he had at last produced a perfect art form for the music-drama, and in this very many claimants now clamorously agree with him. Nevertheless, I think there is ample evidence that he soon came to still another consciousness of failure and of still remaining absurdities. Let us review the position he now held.

After climbing part way up the logical staircase, he finds that unconquerable theatric devil of his confronted by the problem (insoluble, as we know, but he did n't think so) of bringing into artistic union two antagonistic elements, dramatized human action and rhythmic music. This reminds one somewhat of the juvenile days when one was questioned about the consequences of an irresistible force meeting an immovable body. He first tries to escape step 4 by changing the action, and he takes superhuman in place of human; but this does not do all he wants, because the result remains anthropomorphic, so to speak. Now, if he is conscious of failure and wants to try again, what is there left for

him to try? He has already changed his action, and that will not do. Manifestly, nothing remains but to change the music, if he can, by robbing it of that root of his theatrical trouble, its rhythm. And if it can be shown that Wagner did try to eliminate rhythm from his music, I think this is evidence enough that he was conscious of his artistic failure in joining rhythmic music to dramatic action, and was doing his best to avoid step 4 by turning aside to lose, if he could, the one of the spirits of music that was most hateful to his theatric demon.

Now comes the question, did Wagner try to rid his music of rhythm? Even the claimants will scarcely dare to deny his having done so, since it would be so easy to cover pages with proofs and instances of it, taken by pages from his scores, where they are thick as leaves in Vallombrosa. And it was not only in his scores that he strove for this. One of the last and strongest links in the chain of evidence is the fact that when Wagner built his own theatre at Baireuth, not satisfied with smothering audible rhythm out of his music as much as he dared, he went the further length of covering entirely from the audience the visible rhythm of baton and bow, without which his performances were impossible, by hiding his orchestra and its conductor behind a great screen or shield, lest the eyes of the listeners should remind their ears that there was such a thing as rhythm to make the action of his characters ridiculous.

For in very truth Wagner's patent improved operatic action remains absurd and ridiculous in many of the old and acknowledged points, in spite of his lifelong labors in the service of the demon of the theatre. I do not refer to such pitiful puerilities as the dragon in Siegfried, and that wonderful wood - bird which, when Siegfried tastes the magic blood, instantly learns to speak German, but to the most serious histrionic efforts of the ablest Wagnerian artists, trained by the master himself. They still stride and ges

ture on the accented beats when they can find them; they still perilously suspend the action while they hold high notes; the mirrors they hold up to nature still have surfaces warped by the waves of sound, and of course still reflect distorted images.

A few years ago, Dion Boucicault, that past master in dramatic art, wrote for The North American Review a most trenchant and pungent paper on operatic acting in general, and on Wagnerian acting in particular; the paper being pointed mainly at the claimants of high artistic value for Wagnerian acting. I wish that every reader of this could and would read that, or that Boucicault's paper might be again presented to that great grand jury, the public; for it is an indictment that has never yet been quashed, and some day the public may find a true bill on it. After many keen thrusts, he boldly challenges the claimants to place the best Wagnerian acting they can find side by side, as acting, with any standard good performance of modern spoken drama, and asserts that not even the most clamorous claimant can feel any doubt about the verdict, or as to the Wagnerian kind of acting being laughed off the stage if applied to spoken words. Boucicault, however, concerned himself only with judging the facts, and did not follow with a study of their causes. Two replies appeared in consecutive numbers of the magazine, but neither did they reach the real root of the matter. The first objected to the attack on the ground that Boucicault's reasoning would deprive us of all song; but that was manifestly unfair, since it is plain that he dealt not with the marriage of words and music which makes song, but with that marriage of worded music and dramatic action which makes opera. The second reply was much stronger than the first, but never reached the underlying truth of the case, and the writer soon undermined his own position completely by citing, with highest praise and as a triumphant example in refutation, the act

ing of Isolde in the garden scene, when, after extinguishing the torch, she watches in silence, but in great excitement, for Tristan's coming, waves her scarf, and generally deports herself in a way to convey her feelings very fully to the audience without saying anything; the orchestra meanwhile accompanying her pantomime deliciously. Why she should be silent just here I never could quite understand, since before this she has not been backward about shouting her emotions under all circumstances; but she is silent until Tristan appears, and devotes herself to "business" with such success that, as I said, the scene is naïvely quoted in refutation; the writer not perceiving that his quotation comes back like a boomerang and smites himself, since, on his own showing, this acting can be good and is good because there is no singing at all. Therefore what he praises is only pantomime, not opera.

Since I have begun citing authorities, I cannot resist the temptation to quote Wagner against himself concerning "sung acting." In his discussion of The Purpose of the Opera, he frankly admits that the very best dramatic singers are sometimes forced to spoken words in the midst of sung acting, in order to produce reality of impression; and he gives the instance of Madame Schroeder Devrient, whom he greatly admired, and who made a fine point in Fidelio on "Another step, and-thou art - DEAD!" the last words being most dramatically and forcibly spoken instead of sung, with an almost startling effect of reality on the hearers. (Madame Calvé does the same thing for the same purpose in Carmen, speaking instead of singing the supreme words, "Non, je ne t'aime plus.") And yet in another place, when his devil had evidently downed his logic again, he says that a poor singer can produce effects that are impossible in the best spoken drama. So, indeed, he can, but only because of the intrinsic difference in kind between them, which is here so radical

as utterly to invalidate the comparison in degree, and to the detriment of spoken drama, which Wagner meant.

But we have sufficiently disposed of Wagnerian music-drama acting. It cannot reach the best development of acting.

And now a few words concerning Wagnerian music-drama music. Wagner himself placed music in the subordinate position, in this amazing marriage, and a recent inquiry among living English composers of the first ability resulted in a published opinion that the permanent art form of what is now known as musicdrama is not to be music with drama added, as might be supposed from the name, but drama with music added. Is not this enough to make true lovers of true music indignant? For it has been shown that this unnatural union must bring dramatic action down far below its best; and since it is now also asserted that in this union music is always to be thrust below even this degraded drama, how does the beloved Muse fare in the marriage? There are many rhythmic gems of Wagner's genius that have brought delight to listening thousands and will live forever. There are many and many dreary pages in the works he thought his best which, as music, have no coherence and give no pleasure. I remember well that, some years ago, Theodore Thomas, with his superb orchestra, gave a concert rendering of the Good Friday music from Parsifal, the vocal parts being sung by Scaria and Winckelmann. It was triumphantly announced as a grand treat to music lovers, and nothing could have been finer technically. But when the music that was written to go with the slow wandering of Parsifal and Gurnemanz among the flowers was given with only the orchestra filling the stage, and with two stout and rather elderly gentlemen, in black dress suits and white chokers, standing stock still at the footlights, and now and then singing the few scattered phrases they

had to sing, it was all heard and judged simply as music, and was found wanting. It was felt to be dreary and depressing.

Here are two arts, each of them, when alone, entitled to rank as fine art. Here is a union of the two in which the best in both is killed, and neither can possibly reach its highest development and achievement. Am I to be told that this killing union can claim rank for itself as fine art? I trow not, at this stage in the world's progress. Here it is interesting to note that there have always been some celebrated musicians these being also always among the noblest who have gone, perhaps unconsciously, up that logical staircase to the top; some without any stop at step 4, like Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and others who never wrote opera at all, though, like Mendelssohn, they may have thought of it; and others who paused at step 4, and perhaps turned aside for a time before going up, like Beethoven, who wrote only Fidelio, and then went higher. These men all, sooner or later, attained true artistic insight, and placed the truth above the theatre. Wagner never did. He was conscious of the truth, but his love of the theatre would not let him admit it. He saw step 4, and knew that it led upward to a truer art life; but he gloried so in the theatrical that I do not believe he ever thought of mounting that step, though, as we have seen, he struggled hard to get around it. Since that was impossible, he lived and worked below it, under the dominion of the demon of the theatre and of other propensities all his life.

In the occasional periods of decadence that come to the arts of color and of form, efforts are sure to be made at uniting painting and sculpture by coloring statues; and a slight tint of delicate color on some sculpture seems sometimes so beautifully suggestive as to add value to the form, just as a slight hint of dramatic action in the singing of some songs is suggestive as to the spirit of the music,