Throughout, there are many ravishing touches of tenderness, of sincere romance; and the finale is very pathetic. His reason returns—wonderfully described—and the poor, lovable Knight, recognizing his aberration, passes gently away. Here Strauss utilizes a device as old as the hills, and one heard in the B minor symphony of Tschaïkowsky. It is sort of a _basso ostinato_, the _tympani_ obstinately tapping a tone as the soul of the much-tried man takes flight. Perhaps the accents of a deep-seated pessimism may be overheard here—for I believe Richard Strauss too great a nature to remain content with his successes. He recalls to me in this poem the little mezzotint of John Martin, where Sadak in search of the waters of oblivion painfully creeps over the cruel edges of terrifying abysses to misty heights, upon which still more appalling dangers await the intrepid soul. Strauss has only reached the midway of his mortal life. A stylist, a realist in his treatment of his orchestral hosts, a psychologist among psychologists, a master of a new and generous culture, a thinker, above all an interpreter of poetic and heroic types of humanity, who shall say to him: Dare no further! His audacity is only equalled by his mental serenity. In all the fury of his fantasy his intelligence is sovereign over its kingdom. II PARSIFAL: A MYSTIC MELODRAMA I will open my dark saying upon the harp. —PSALM XLIX. When a certain famous Wagner conductor was in New York not long ago, he related to musical friends an astonishing story. He had seen, he declared, the manuscript autobiography of Richard Wagner at Wahnfried, in Bayreuth, which is to remain unpublished until the expiration of a certain period. This conductor did not hesitate to clear up a mystery that, nevertheless, has been an open secret in Germany for many years—Wagner’s parentage. The conductor said that Wagner admitted he was the son of Ludwig Geyer. Ludwig Geyer, painter, poet, dramatist, composer, actor, stage manager,—a versatile man in everything,—was of Hebraic ancestry. Wagner, therefore, had a moiety of the blood, and his son Siegfried more than his father, for Cosima Liszt (von Bülow) Wagner’s maternal grandparents were the Jewish bankers Bethmann of Frankfort-on-the-Main. Mr. Henry T. Finck—whose Wagner biography still remains the standard one in the language—once remarked upon the fact that at Wahnfried, Bayreuth, the pictures of Wagner’s mother and Ludwig Geyer may be seen, but that of his reputed father is not on view. Nietzsche, often a prejudiced witness when his antipathies are aroused, wrote: “Was Wagner German at all? We have some reasons for asking this. It is difficult to discern in him any German trait whatsoever. Being a great learner, he has learned to imitate much that is German—that is all. His character itself is in opposition to what has been hitherto regarded as German—not to speak of the German musician!