fixed
themselves immutably in certain minds, and an undue importance is given
to them, an importance that Wagner would never have allowed. The absurd
idea, propounded in the heat of controversy, that all the arts were to
wax to one art in the music drama, that even sculpture was to be
represented by attitudes of the actors and actresses! Wagner had written
this thing in order to confound his enemies and bring the weak-kneed to
his side, or maybe, it was merely written to make himself clear to
himself. For it was impossible that a man of genius should be so
seriously wanting in appreciation of sculpture as to think with the
centre of his brain, that an actor standing, his hand on his hip, could
fill the place hitherto occupied in the mind by, let us say, the Hermes
of Praxiteles. Yet this idea still obtained at Bayreuth, and Rosa Sucher
walked about, her arms raised and posed above her head, in the
conventional, statuesque attitude designed for the decoration of beer
gardens.

"It really is very sad," Evelyn said, her eyes twinkling with the humour
of the idea, "that anyone should think that such figuration could
replace sculpture."

"But you will not deny that the actor and the actress can supply part of
the picturesqueness of a dramatic action."

"No, indeed; but not by attitudinising, but by gestures that tell the
emotion that is in the mind."

By some obscure route of which they were not aware, these artistic
discussions wound around the idea which dominated their minds, and they
were led back to it continually. The story of "Tristan and Isolde"
seemed to be their own story, and when their eyes met, each divined what
was passing in the other's mind. The music was afloat on the currents of
their blood. It gathered in the brain, paralysing it, and the nervous
exhaustion was unbearable about six, when the servant had taken away the
tea things; and as the afternoon drooped and the beauty of the summer
evening began in the park, speech seemed vain, and they could not bring
themselves to argue any longer.

It was quite true that she had begun to feel the blankness of the
positivist creed, if it were possible to call it a creed. There seemed
nothing left of it, it seemed to have shrivelled up like a little
withered leaf; true or false, it meant nothing to her, it crushed up
like a dried leaf, and the dust escaped through her fingers. Then
without any particular reason she remembered a phrase she had heard in
the thea