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These questions are in the nature of argument and foreign to my immediate purpose; in the way of contrast, however, the thoughts to which they give rise will help us to appreciate one phase of the Teutonism which Wagner has impressed upon his dramas which is altogether lovely. We will look at it in both of its expositions, musical and literary, for thus we shall learn something of his constructive methods as well as his poetical impulses. I refer to the ethical idea pervading those of his dramas which, like the Greek tragedies, are based on legendary or mythical tales. The idea is that salvation comes to humanity through the self-sacrificing love of woman. This idea is at the bottom of the great poems and dramas of Germany; it is the main-spring of "The Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and "The Niblung's Ring;" the chorus mysticus which ends Goethe's "Faust" proclaims it oracularly:

"All things transitory

But as symbols are sent.

Earth's insufficiency

Here grows to event.

The Indescribable,