The origin of the guileless fool has already been indicated: this--as it seems to us to-day--idiotic notion of the eighteenth century started Wagner on the notion that if a modern child, with all the developed brain of a modern child, could suddenly be transplanted into a state of nature, all would be well with the world. What could possibly happen? But it is silly to ask the question: the whole juvenile population of the earth would have to be so transplanted, and they would have to find a new earth to live on--at least an earth not frequented by modern men and women. In the next Act we are taken to Klingsor's magic castle. Klingsor calls up Kundry and changes his castle into an enchanted garden full of flower-maidens; Parsifal comes in, and, though curious about the maidens, does not know what they would be at; he angrily drives them off; Kundry calls him. She tells him of the death of his mother who had loved him so dearly; he again weeps and learns the meaning of compassion; Kundry kisses him, and he learns the meaning of sex and temptation. In horror he casts her from him; Klingsor throws the spear at him--the sacred Spear with which Christ's side was wounded, stolen by Klingsor from Montsalvat--it remains suspended above his head; he seizes and waves it, and at once garden, flower-maidens and all are reduced to withered stalks and leaves. Parsifal returns, an "enlightened" fool, and by touching the wound of Amfortas, cures him, becoming himself head of the order. The whole affair is a spectacle which I must say is disgusting to healthy minds. The insinuations are frightful. Consider, reader, seriously for a moment: Parsifal--Siegfried grown to manhood--knows and cares nothing about womankind. As soon as he knows what a woman is he revolts, learns through that knowledge and by his acquaintance with suffering--acquaintance, I say, because he himself has never suffered--that there are two cures for all the woes of humanity. Discard women and pity the men. The thing is absurd, and suggests that the mighty genius was on the verge of imbecility. But the desire to please mad Ludwig accounts for it all in a very undesirable fashion. Of the music it is not necessary to say more than that some of it is fine. For the most part it lacks virility, though there are passages of marvellous loveliness. The flower-maidens' waltz shows what Wagner could do in that way; the Good Friday music, dating back to the _Lohengrin_ days, is sweet and fresh. But the quasi-religious music has no charms for me.