Leaf of Olive and other essays certain hints: such as its probable non-moral character; its creative fashioning of new situations and new laws; its orderliness; its surprises; and its complexity. But when I try to piece these hints together, with simile after simile, image after image, crowding in on me, I find it impossible to shape them to a well-outlined, well-built City of Light; just as I found it impossible, in Maeterlinck's earlier plays, to trace the complete Ineaments of a City of Darkness. Everywhere the stress is not on finality, but on the incomplete, the fragmentary. Here is Maeterlinck's way of dramatizing this "background of light":

"It seems as though we heard those movements: the sound of superhuman footsteps, an enormous door opening, a breath caressing us, or light coming; we do not know; but expectation at this pitch is an ardent and marvellous state of life, the fairest period of happiness, its youth, its childhood."

This is a very effective companion picture to that of the sudden forays of a stealthily moving, malevolent Fate.

This later conception of the universe suggests in some ways a transformation scene in a spectacle, in which curtain after curtain is lifted, each filmier and more transparent, until, with the last bit of gauze withdrawn, the scene stands out sharply in all its details. But-and this is an all-important difference -one never feels in Maeterlinck that the last bit of

gauze has been withdrawn or that there is a last bit of gauze or a sharp and final scene; one is conscious of an endless succession of luminous veils.

But what of Maeterlinck's reinterpretation of consciousness, the inner mystery? And how does his sense of the fragmentary show itself in that? The later work reveals an increasing interest in consciousness and a growing disposition-for which Stoicism must receive part credit-of relating intimately character and destiny, universe and attitude. Certain earlier notions persist: that of the abysmal nature of consciousness, that of the subconscious, that of instinct and premonition as things deeper than reason or purpose, that of slight, expressive gestures. But consciousness, instead of faltering and flickering in the darkness, radiates a strong, even light of confidence and happiness. Happiness is now the key-note. Maeterlinck is fond of the image of "inner treasure" crystallizing in the subterranean regions of the soul and brought to light now and then in a moment of exceptional strength, in an experience of exceptional nobility or beauty. This is a good companion picture to that of bits of consciousness floating upward in an abyss. Here as well as there, one gets the impression of intensive fragmentariness, for how much soul there is no one knows, and how much treasure there is no one knows; what we are aware of are bits of treasure flung up from depths not to be measured.

Further pursuit of this tenuous Artist and somewhat shadowy Thinker would yield, among much that was new, many additional instances of his sense of decorative beauty, of his atmospheric method, of his irradiating imagination and of his sense of the fragmentary.

NOTE: In quoting from Maeterlinck I have made use of the translations of Sutro, Teixeira de Mattos, and Coleman, and wish to acknowledge such use.

IV

WAGNER

So your fugue broadens and thickens
Greatens and deepens and lengthens,
Till we exclaim-" But where's music,
the dickens? "

-BROWNING.

Once more he stept into the street

And to his lips again

Laid his long pipe of smooth straight

cane:

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet Soft notes as yet musician's cunning Never gave the enraptured ear)— -BROWNING.

It is for the expert in music to give a study of Wagner the composer, the artist; for he alone is competent to sketch the history of music and to discuss Wagner's innovations in harmonics, characterization, and structure; to him alone can we look for a comparative study of scores and a subtle appreciation of musical resources. The time has come for such a study; Wagnerian music has emerged from periods of rabid abuse and blind idolatry, and readily submits to, in fact calls for, a critical estimate.

Meanwhile there is for one who is not a musical expert a problem of great interest: the study of Wagner the essayist and reflective artist. Beyond a doubt Wagner takes himself very seriously as a Thinker, and seeks to develop and justify his artistic ideals in a series of essays; some of which are brief, like those on Beethoven, on acting and on the theatre, on opera, on composing, on the artist and the public, others long and constructive, like The Work of Art of the Future, Opera and Drama, Art and Religion and Art and Revolution. None of them is easy or attractive reading; they are top-heavy and lack the charming allusiveness of Rodin and the sparkle and fire of Nietzsche. Add to a sober and clumsy manner of thinking an enthusiasm that is not well mixed, and the result is at once heavy and yeasty. But for all that they are of value in helping disclose Wagner's development, and in showing how certain beliefs and dissatisfactions shaped themselves to an ideal of a true art and a music of the future.

Wagner, like Rodin, for many years stood alone. A man so original and revolutionary in his views and his technique and of so hungry an individualism in thought and feeling would naturally draw criticism or expose himself to neglect. Matters would hardly be mended by his often tactless utterances and his tenacity in clinging to his ideal. For it was an ideal, an earnest desire to show the way to something better, and not presumption, that led to Wagner's