The religious feeling which runs through the performance, the reverence with which it is received, are enhanced by the abstention from anything like applause. The nearest approach to it is something approaching to a sob of relief which follows upon such supreme moments as the fall of the curtain upon the flames of Valhalla (in the _Götterdämmerung_); but that sob says more than all the ridiculous calls before the curtain with which we destroy any illusion that may have been created by the finest efforts of our actors. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Ophelia, Othello and Desdemona called to life again to grin a fatuous good-night to the audience! _Proh pudor!_ Let the players go to Bayreuth and learn what is due, if not to the dignity of their own art, at any rate to the genius of the poet whose interpreters they are. Wagner felt music as the revelation of the language of another world—a language of which Beethoven, Mozart, Bach were the teachers. We have seen how the music of _Egmont_ appealed to him as a boy. With what force he used that language to appeal to the deepest feelings of those to whom he specially addressed himself will best be recognized by those who may have the privilege of attending the _General-Probe_, the dress rehearsal of one of the festivals. Here are no tourists, no sham amateurs travelling to the little Franconian town because it is “the thing” to do, and as though the pilgrimage conferred a degree in culture. The guests are all invited from the very flower of Germany’s intellect—men who have earned honour in the most varied careers, women who are famous in many branches of work. These are the worshippers who flock to the shrine of the Cult, these the minds that the great poet holds in the thraldom of his genius. With the silence of conviction they accept his preaching: the Early Christians meeting in the Catacombs could hardly have been more reverent or more reserved. In any sketch of Bayreuth, however flimsy, a word must be said about Wahnfried, the home of Wagner’s happiest days, the house where those who were nearest and dearest to him must almost feel as if they were still under the guardianship of that mighty soul: so filled is the place with memories of his presence that even strangers seem to be held by the spell of his spirit hovering over the trees that he loved, the garden that he laid out with such care and such consummate simplicity.