The spectacle, which represents a series of lofty and still loftier peaks of a chain of mountains, at the moment when the morning mists envelop them, furnishes a just comparison to that given us by these works, which rise successively, one above the other, from the lovely green hill to the dazzling and, for many, inaccessible summits. From Rienzi to the Gloom of the Gods there is the same difference of attitude as between the Capitoline Hill and the Himalaya. And what gigantic strides from one work to the other. A powerful, enthusiastic genius already reveals itself in Rienzi; but it has done little more than assimilate, with the greatest facility, the beauties that had most charmed one in the works of its predecessors. Wagner likes show, pompous processions, the tumult of battle; the brilliant orchestra resounds, is carried away, enthusiastic; the power which moves it, not yet under control, expends itself in vociferations, heroic cries of extreme vehemence; but as yet nothing presages the innovator, if it be not the almost prophetic sense of the subject, so ardently revolutionary. Between Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman lies an abyss. The young master, disdaining the success of his first work, judges it with severity and casts it aside; he considers it an essay. From the first he has equalled his models, but he feels that he is still far from his ideal; a new world palpitates in his mind; he must break the old moulds and fetters of routine that he may soar untrammelled toward unexplored regions. The artist, now sure of himself, definitely abandons historical subjects, whose too hard reality is not in keeping with the idealism of music. The natural poetry of legend and myth suits him far better. Henceforward the path is found, he will no longer turn aside from it, but continually enlarge upon its thought. From the popular song, hummed by the Norwegian spinners while turning their wheels, he will rise to the savage grandeurs of the northern theogonies. It was upon a sea-voyage, during a storm, which cast him upon the coast of Norway, that Richard Wagner induced the sailors themselves to repeat to him the frightful story of the Flying Dutchman--Ahasverus of the Sea, who, blaspheming, defied the storm with Satan's aid, and was condemned to wander eternally, he and his fantastic ship. But the mystical young girl, grown pale from the snow's reflections, who languishes with love for the damned one, carried incessantly through shipwrecks and lightning, will save him by her faithful devotion, even unto death, if he but reaches her.