teach somewhat. And what does this teach--but
that one must be great? Not enough to be innocent, kind, loving,
pure as snow, like Elsa, a being golden and lovely through and
through, such as could lure down a sort of angel from his heaven.
Beside it all, great one must be. Life, the Sphinx, requires upon
occasion that one be great. Just a little greatness, so to speak,
and Elsa would first of all have recognised the obligation to keep
her word; would further have trusted what must have been her own
profound instinct about the man she loved, rather than the suggestions
of others troubling her shallow mind-surface. Had she been great,
we may almost affirm, she would have known that he was great; she
would have trusted truth and greatness though they came to her
unlabelled.

But Life, the Sphinx, proposed to her a riddle, and because she
was no more than a poor, sweet, limited woman she could not solve
it, and Life ground her in its teeth and swallowed her up.

TANNHAeUSER

TANNHAeUSER

I.

We are shown in the Ouverture of Tannhaeuser the power which contended
for the young knight and minstrel's soul: the appeal of good is
symbolised by the solemn chant of the pilgrims; of evil, by the
voice of Venus, the song of the Sirens, the Bacchic dance.

We are not informed how he came into the Hill of Venus, but when
we see him at the Landgrave's court, which we are told he forsook
of yore in offended pride, we think we divine. He is more greatly
gifted than any of his associates. By his sense of superiority he
is made--young and hot-blooded as he is,--haughty, quick, impatient.
They cannot suffer his overbearing way. We can imagine how upon an
occasion he left them, after a round quarrel, in a fury of vexation,
sick with disgust at the whole world of such slow, limited creatures,
the whole world of petty passions and narrow circumstances, in a
mood to sell himself to the Devil for something in life which should
seem to him worth while, of satisfactory size, peer to himself. And
so his feet had come in the familiar valley suddenly upon a new
path, and been led to the interior of the mountain where Venus,
driven from the surface of the earth by the usurping Cross, had
taken refuge with all her pagan train. There the Queen of Love
herself had contented him, and his thirsty youth had thought this
no doubt a sufficient crown of life; this had met all his vast
desires, appeased all his boundless pride. He had lived in the