rris did not read German.

Both men hark back to a time when Man and Nature were on friendly terms;
when the thought, best exemplified by the early Greeks, of the
sacredness of the human body was recognized; when the old medieval
feeling of helpful brotherhood yet lingered; and the restless misery of
competition and all the train of woe, squalor and ugliness that
"civilization" has brought were unknown.

Wagner's music is made up of the sounds of Nature conventionalized. You
hear the sighing of the breeze, the song of the birds, the cries of
animals, the rush of the storm. Wagner's essay, entitled, "Art and
Revolution," is the twin to the lecture, "Art and Socialism," by Morris;
and in the "Art-Work of the Future," Wagner works out at length the
favorite recurring theme of Morris: work is for the worker, and art is
the expression of man's joy in his work.

In Eighteen Hundred Forty-four, when Morris was ten years of age, Wagner
wrote:

"I compose for myself; it is just a question between me and my Maker. I
grow as I exercise my faculties, and expression is a necessary form of
spiritual exercise. How shall I live? Express what I think or feel, or
what you feel?

"No, I must be honest and sincere. I must, for the need of myself, live
my own life, for work is for the worker, at the last. Each man must
please himself, and Nature has placed her approbation on this by
supplying the greatest pleasure men ever know as a reward for doing good
work. I hate this fast-growing tendency to chain men to machines in big
factories and deprive them of all joy in their efforts--the plan will
lead to cheap men and cheap products. I set my face against it and plead
for the dignity and health of the open air, and the olden time."

This sort of talk led straight to Wagner's arrest in the streets of
Dresden on the charge of inciting a riot; and it was the identical line
of argument that caused the arrest of Morris in Trafalgar Square,
London, when he was taken struggling to the station-house.

Wagner was exiled and Morris merely "cautioned," placed under police
surveillance and ostracized. The difference in time explains the
difference in punishment. A century earlier and both men would have
forfeited their heads.

In all of Wagner's operas the scene is laid at a time when the
festivals, games and religious ceremonies were touched with the thought
of beauty. Men were strong, plain, blunt and honest. Affectation,
finesse, pretense and