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spondent, if he only wishes for information, and will teach him not to try to obtain anything by false pretences, if his intent was what it is, for the most part, in letters of this kind.

Letters asking Advice. An author is not of necessity a competent adviser on all subjects. He is expected, nevertheless, to advise unknown persons as to their health of body and mind, their religion, their choice of a profession; on matrimony, on education, on courses of reading; and, more especially, to lay down a short and easy method for obtaining brilliant and immediate success in a literary career. These applicants, if replied to at all, should be directed to the several specialists who are competent to answer their questions. Literary aspirants commonly send a specimen of their productions in prose or verse, oftenest the latter. They ask for criticism, but they want praise, which they very rarely deserve. If a sentence can be extracted from any letter written them which can help an advertisement, the publisher of their little volume will get hold of it. They demoralize kindhearted authors by playing on their goodnature, and leading them to express judgments not in conformity with their own standards. They must be taught the lesson that authors are not the same thing as editors and publishers, whose business it is to examine manuscripts intended for publication, and to whom their applications should be addressed.

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the invitations he is constantly receiving. The fact of noted authorship should be considered equivalent to a perpetual previous engagement. A formal answer to an invitation shall discharge him from further duty, and he shall not be taxed to contribute in prose or verse to occasions in which he has no special interest, or any other, unless so disposed.

- Private Letters of Authors. No private letter of any Author, and no extract from such letter, shall be printed without his permission, or without giving him the opportunity of correcting the proof, as in the case of any other publication of what he has written. If any letter, or extract from a letter, of an Author is printed in violation of these obvious rights and duties, the Author shall not be held responsible for any statement such letter or extract may be alleged to contain; and those who publish any such alleged statement as having been made by the Author in question shall be considered as taking part in the original violation of confidence, unless they defend the Author against all unfavorable inferences drawn from said letter or extract.

Of Books sent to Authors. An Author is not bound to read any book sent him by a stranger. He is not under any obligation to express his opinion of any book so sent, whether said opinion is to be used as a Publisher's advertisement or not. An acknowledgment, with thanks, is to be reckoned a discharge of all obligations to the sender.

Of Remembering introduced Strangers. Strangers who have had an introduction to an Author have no right to expect that their faces will be remembered by him as well as they remember his. This is especially true of persons of the female sex who are youthful and comely, and for this reason have a certain resemblance to each other. If such

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Ir is the purpose of this paper to give the impression made by the performance of Parsifal at Baireuth, last summer, in view of certain strictures upon the motive of the drama, and without any attempt at musical criticism. In order to do this, I shall have to run over the leading features of the play, already given in the newspapers. Criticism enough, and of an unfavorable sort, there has been, though I heard none of it in Baireuth, nor ever any from those who had been present at the wonderful festival. Perhaps that was because I happened to meet only disciples of Wagner. I fancy that the professional critics, who did publish depreciating comments upon the new opera, and upon Wagner's methods in general, felt more inclined to that course after they had escaped from the powerful immediate impression of the performance, from the atmosphere of Baireuth, and begun to reflect upon the responsibilities of the special critics to the world at large, and what in par

ticular was their duty towards the whole Wagner movement, assumption, presumption, or whatever it is called, than they did while they were surrounded by the influences that Wagner had skillfully brought to bear to effect his purpose on them.

I have read two kinds of criticism. One was written by musical adepts, who had not heard the opera, but who condemned it on perusal of the score and the libretto; declaring the latter to be sacrilegious, and the author to be a false prophet among musicians and a charlatan among managers. The other critics, who also set themselves against Wagnerism, described the performance in such terms that all Europe was more and more eager to see it, but compounded for their reluctant enjoyment by finding unworthy methods in a success they could not deny. Whatever the triumph. was, they said it was not a pure musical triumph, but one due to the creation of special conditions and favoring circum

stances. Fancy Beethoven pushing his music into popular notice by such claptrap means!

It was a great offense, in the first place, that Wagner should build his theatre in the inaccessible Franconian city, a city with scant accommodations for visitors, and off the regular lines of travel. It was a still greater offense that, after all, he should be able to attract to this remote and provincial place pilgrims and strangers, not only from every country in Europe, but from America, Australia, and India; and that the theatre should be filled three nights in the week for three months by persons willing to incur the expense of a long, wearisome journey, and to pay thirty marks (seven dollars and a half) for a seat, at the end of it. A success of this sort could scarcely be legitimate. It must be due to some managerial legerdemain and to a misdirected enthusiasm.

Perhaps if we knew all the circumstances, the building of the theatre at Baireuth would not appear to be a whim of arbitrariness. Years ago, the king of Bavaria desired to erect a theatre in Munich, on the hill over the Iser. He was so bitterly opposed in the location of the building by the citizens of Munich that he abandoned the purpose, and began the construction of a play-house to suit himself, elsewhere. The new theatre would have been so well adapted to Wagner's purposes that it may be doubted if Wagner would have set up his standard at Baireuth, if the Munich project had been carried out.

Yet it must be owned that the quaint little city, which owes so much of its romantic interest to Frederick's sister, the Margravine, has advantages in its very remotenesses and primitive conditions. The reason why Wagner's operas are enjoyed in Munich, and fail to please in Paris, is not that they are better presented in Munich; nor is the comparative failure in Paris due to the

character of the operas, but rather to the atmosphere of Paris and the character of the audiences. Parsifal is scarcely better adapted to the meridian and the operatic traditions of Paris than is the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play.

It is Wagner's well-known theory of the opera that it should be something other than a series of airs, sung by one or two or several persons to the audience, with spaces or wastes of musical declamation between; with an orchestra merely by way of accompaniment, and a background of scenery that would indifferently fit a dozen plays, and a plot incoherent and without any special purpose. Whether Wagner is successful or not in reducing his theories to practice is still in dispute; but he attempts a production which has purpose and unity, and which excludes everything not consistent with the effects he aims at. A story is to be told, a lesson is to be taught, an impression is to be produced on the hearer and spectator; and to this impression the orchestra, the scenery, and the singing are of almost equal importance. Nothing is admitted that does. not forward the general purpose, and the unity of the story is not broken by special appeals to the audience. The effort is made to impress and stimulate the imagination, and to engage the attention in the work as a whole rather than in certain lyrical and melodic details. Wagner desires to move in his audiences sentiments, fervors, aspirations, in particular directions. Why is it charlatanism in him to prepare conditions favorable to his purpose Why is it not legitimate that he should bring his audiences into such a state of mind, before the performance begins, that they are predisposed to enjoy the entertainment he offers. We know how much the appreciation of a poem depends upon the surroundings in which we read it or hear it. If Wagner has so contrived it that his audiences, arriving at the quiet and primitive city where he is almost

worshiped, regard themselves as pilgrims at a special festival, and are in a receptive state of mind before they enter the theatre; if the theatre itself and all the environments heighten this impression; and if, finally, the performance itself seems to them more like a spiritual drama than an opera, where is the charlatanism, even if it can be proved that the impression is largely due to the accessories of the music? If it is said that other great composers would not have resorted to such adventitious aids, I can only think that any composer would have liked to command the best conditions for the production of his compositions. It is of course possible that the crowds at Baireuth were victims of a delusion, and of skillful contrivance. I can answer for many of them that they would like to be deluded again in just that way.

When we arrived at the station in Baireuth, it was at once apparent that the town was en fête, and that its sole occupation was the Wagner festival. Our train, which had waited at the last junction to bring hundreds of passengers from the east, was an hour late; it was two o'clock in the afternoon, and the performance was to begin at four. The bastle at the station, the ubiquity of committee-men and town officials, the crowd of vehicles, of all the fashions of the present and the last century, the air of expectation and the excitement were evidence of the entire absorption of the town in the great event. An agricultural fair in a New England village, or a Fiesta de Toros in Spain, could not more stir a community into feverish and cheerfal activity. If the arriving stranger, carpet-bag in hand, had not the free

of the city, he had all the city to at on him, answer his inquiries, and take interest in him as an intelligent and profitable pilgrim. We had secured tickets by telegraph, and found them ly for us at the banker's. We had applied to the burgomeister for

accommodations for the night, and we found that a committee, in permanent session at the station, had already billeted our party at private houses, to which we were promptly dispatched. Everything was so perfectly systematized that the wayfaring man, though a Wagnerite, need not err therein, and our quarters turned out to be exceedingly comfortable, and given at moderate prices. All the private houses of the place appeared to be at the disposal of the committee, and offered without extortion. If the inhabitants were not all devoted to Wagner, they were devoted to his festival, and the master pervaded the town. The musical works of Richard Wagner were everywhere in sight, and in almost all the shop windows were photographs of Wagner, engravings of Wagner, busts of Wagner, statuettes of Wagner. The other chief objects for sale in the town were photographs of the characters in Parsifal. We liked the old town, at once for its quaintness and single-mindedness, and we admitted that there is only one Baireuth, and Wagner is its prophet.

The pilgrim to the shrine of Wagner is treated like a pilgrim. He is expected to be willing to put his devotion to a further test, after reaching the remote town; for the theatre is set on a hill, half a mile from the city, so that a carriage is needed for the majority of visitors, especially if the weather is rainy, as it was the day of our arrival, and as it was all last summer, four days out of five, in the German land. This hill places the spiritual drama one more remove from the bustle of the sinful world, and helps to isolate the performance from ordinary life. The theatre is an ungainly brick building, erected only with reference to the interior accommodations. The great bulk of the stage rises out of it in defiance of all architectural beauty. The auditorium is surrounded by an open corridor, from which there are entrances for every

stances. Fancy Beethoven pushing his musie into popular notice by such claptrap means!

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It was a great offense, in the first place, that Wagner should build his theatre in the inaccessible Franconian city, -a city with scant accommodations for visitors, and off the regular lines of travel. It was a still greater offense that, after all, he should be able to attract to this remote and provincial place pilgrims and strangers, not only from every country in Europe, but from America, Australia, and India; and that the theatre should be filled three nights in the week for three months by persons willing to incur the expense of a long, wearisome journey, and to pay thirty marks (seven dollars and a half) for a seat, at the end of it. A success of this sort could scarcely be legitimate. It must be due to some managerial legerdemain and to a misdirected enthusiasm.

Perhaps if we knew all the circumstances, the building of the theatre at Baireuth would not appear to be a whim of arbitrariness. Years ago, the king of Bavaria desired to erect a theatre in Munich, on the hill over the Iser. He was so bitterly opposed in the location of the building by the citizens of Munich that he abandoned the purpose, and began the construction of a play-house to suit himself, elsewhere. The new theatre would have been so well adapted to Wagner's purposes that it may be doubted if Wagner would have set up his standard at Baireuth, if the Munich project had been carried out.

Yet it must be owned that the quaint little city, which owes so much of its romantic interest to Frederick's sister, the Margravine, has advantages in its very remotenesses and primitive conditions. The reason why Wagner's operas are enjoyed in Munich, and fail to please in Paris, is not that they are better presented in Munich; nor is the comparative failure in Paris due to the

character of the operas, but rather to the atmosphere of Paris and the character of the audiences. Parsifal is scarcely better adapted to the meridian and the operatic traditions of Paris than is the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play.

It is Wagner's well-known theory of the opera that it should be something other than a series of airs, sung by one or two or several persons to the audience, with spaces or wastes of musical declamation between ; with an orchestra merely by way of accompaniment, and a background of scenery that would indifferently fit a dozen plays, and a plot incoherent and without any special purpose. Whether Wagner is successful or not in reducing his theories to practice is still in dispute; but he attempts a production which has purpose and unity, and which excludes everything not consistent with the effects he aims at. A story is to be told, a lesson is to be taught, an impression is to be produced on the hearer and spectator; and to this impression the orchestra, the scenery, and the singing are of almost equal importance. Nothing is admitted that does not forward the general purpose, and the unity of the story is not broken by special appeals to the audience. The effort is made to impress and stimulate the imagination, and to engage the attention in the work as a whole rather than in certain lyrical and melodic details. Wagner desires to move in his audiences sentiments, fervors, aspirations, in particular directions. Why is it charlatanism in him to prepare conditions favorable to his purpose Why is it not legitimate that he should bring his audiences into such a state of mind, before the performance begins, that they are predisposed to enjoy the entertainment he offers. We know how much the appreciation of a poem depends upon the surroundings in which we read it or hear it. If Wagner has so contrived it that his audiences, arriving at the quiet and primitive city where he is almost

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