nks of the angels: can not you see Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, leading
the heavenly host? Can not some of you sympathize a little with Satan
and his struggle?"

Looking at him, I thought they must indeed be an unimaginative set! In
that dark face before them was Mephistopheles at least--_der Geist der
stets verneint_--if nothing more violent. His cool, scornful features
were lighted up with some of the excitement which he could not drill
into the assemblage before him. Had he been gifted with the requisite
organ he would have acted and sung the chief character in "Faust" _con
amore_.

"_Ach, um Gotteswillen!_" he went on, shrugging his shoulders, "try to
forget what you are! Try to forget that none of you ever had a wicked
thought or an unholy aspiration--"

("Don't they see how he is laughing at them?" I wondered.)

"You, Chorus of the Condemned, try to conjure up every wicked thought
you can, and let it come out in your voices--you who sing the strains of
the blessed ones, think of what blessedness is. Surely each of you has
his own idea! Some of you may agree with Lenore:

"'Bei ihm, bei ihm ist Seligkeit,
Und ohne Wilhelm Holle!'

"If so, think of him; think of her--only sing it, whatever it is.
Remember the strongest of feelings:

"'Die Engel nennen es Himmelsfreude
Die Teufel nennen es Hoellenqual,
Die Menschen nennen es--LIEBE!'

"And sing it!"

He had not become loud or excited in voice or gesticulation, but his
words, flung at them like so many scornful little bullets, the
indifferent resignation of his attitude, had their effect upon the crew
of giggling, simpering girls and awkward, self-conscious young men. Some
idea seemed vouchsafed to them that perhaps their performance had not
been quite all that it might have been; they began in a little more
earnest, and the chorus went better.

For my own part, I was deeply moved. A vague excitement, a wild, and not
altogether a holy one, had stolen over me. I understood now how the man
might have influence. I bent to the power of his will, which reached me
where I stood in the background, from his dark eyes, which turned for a
moment to me now and then. It was that will of his which put me as it
were suddenly into the spirit of the music, and revealed me depths in my
own heart at which I had never even guessed. Excited, with cheeks
burning and my heart hot within me, I followed his words and his
gestures, and grew so impatient of