nd die and leave nothing behind but a pinch of ashes and a stink.

I saw the last act of "Tannhauser." I sat in the gloom and the deep
stillness, waiting--one minute, two minutes, I do not know exactly how
long--then the soft music of the hidden orchestra began to breathe its
rich, long sighs out from under the distant stage, and by and by the
drop-curtain parted in the middle and was drawn softly aside, disclosing
the twilighted wood and a wayside shrine, with a white-robed girl
praying and a man standing near. Presently that noble chorus of men's
voices was heard approaching, and from that moment until the closing
of the curtain it was music, just music--music to make one drunk with
pleasure, music to make one take scrip and staff and beg his way round
the globe to hear it.

To such as are intending to come here in the Wagner season next year I
wish to say, bring your dinner-pail with you. If you do, you will never
cease to be thankful. If you do not, you will find it a hard fight to
save yourself from famishing in Bayreuth. Bayreuth is merely a large
village, and has no very large hotels or eating-houses. The principal
inns are the Golden Anchor and the Sun. At either of these places you
can get an excellent meal--no, I mean you can go there and see other
people get it. There is no charge for this. The town is littered with
restaurants, but they are small and bad, and they are overdriven with
custom. You must secure a table hours beforehand, and often when you
arrive you will find somebody occupying it. We have had this experience.
We have had a daily scramble for life; and when I say we, I include
shoals of people. I have the impression that the only people who do
not have to scramble are the veterans--the disciples who have been here
before and know the ropes. I think they arrive about a week before the
first opera, and engage all the tables for the season. My tribe had
tried all kinds of places--some outside of the town, a mile or two--and
have captured only nibblings and odds and ends, never in any instance
a complete and satisfying meal. Digestible? No, the reverse. These odds
and ends are going to serve as souvenirs of Bayreuth, and in that regard
their value is not to be overestimated. Photographs fade, bric-a-brac
gets lost, busts of Wagner get broken, but once you absorb a
Bayreuth-restaurant meal it is your possession and your property until
the time comes to embalm the rest of you. Some of these pilgrims h