If you wanted to write a symphony, illustrative of the pangs and miseries of a sufferer from toothache, you would, if you were a disciple of Wagner, write your orchestral score so that the instruments should convey to the listener the whole gamut of groans--the temporary relief, the return of the pain, the sudden disappearance of it on ringing the bell at the dentist's door, the final wrench of extraction gone through by the poor patient. On the boards you would put a personage who, with voice and contortions, should help you, as pictorial illustrations help an author. Such is the Wagnerian method. [Illustration: "A TERRIBLE WAGNERITE."] After the play I met a terrible Wagnerite. Most Wagnerites are terrible. They will not admit that anything can be discussed, much less criticised, in the works of the master. They are not admirers, disciples; they are worshipers. To them Wagner's music is as perfect as America is to many a good-humored American. They will tell you that never have horses neighed so realistically as they do in the "Walküre." Answer that this is almost lowering music to the level of ventriloquism, and they will declare you a profane, unworthy to live. My Wagnerite friend told me last night that Wagner's work constantly improved till it reached perfection in "Parsifal." "There," he said, quite seriously, "the music has reached such a state of perfection that, in the garden scene, you can smell the violets and the roses." "Well," I interrupted, "I heard 'Parsifal' in Bayreuth, and I must confess that it is, perhaps, the only work of Wagner's that I cannot understand." "I have heard it thirty-four times," he said, "and enjoyed it more the thirty-fourth time than I did the thirty-third." "Then," I remarked, "perhaps it has to be heard fifty times before it can be thoroughly appreciated. In which case, you must own that life is too short to enable one to see an opera fifty times in order to enjoy it as it should really be enjoyed. I don't care what science there is about music, or what labors a musician should have to go through. As one of the public, I say that music is a recreation, and should be understood at once. Auber, for example, with his delightful airs, that three generations of men have sung on their way home from the opera house, has been a greater benefactor of the human race than Wagner. I prefer music written for the heart to music written for the mind." On hearing me mention Auber's name in one breath with Wagner's, the Wagnerite threw a glance of contempt at me that I shall never forget. "Well," said I, to regain his good graces, "I may improve yet--I will try again." As a rule, the Wagnerite is a man utterly destitute of humor. * * * * * _March 20._