Distance from the accidents of real life, atmosphere, the space for a new, fairer world to form itself, being of the essence of Wagner’s representation, it is worth noticing how adroitly he throws back this world of his, farther and farther into the background, by a thousand tricks of lighting, the actual distance of the stage from the proscenium, and by such calculated effects, as that long scene of the Graal, with its prolonged movement and ritual, through the whole of which Parsifal stands motionless, watching it all.  How that solitary figure at the side, merely looking on, though, unknown to himself, he is the centre of the action, also gives one the sense of remoteness, which it was Wagner’s desire to produce, throwing back the action into a reflected distance, as we watch someone on the stage who is watching it!

The beauty of this particular kind of acting and staging is of course the beauty of convention.  The scenery, for instance, with what an enchanting leisure it merely walks along before one’s eyes, when a change is wanted!  Convention, here as in all plastic art, is founded on natural truth very closely studied.  The rose is first learned, in every wrinkle of its petals, petal by petal, before that reality is elaborately departed from, in order that a new, abstract beauty may be formed out of those outlines, all but those outlines being left out.  And “Parsifal,” which is thus solemnly represented before us, has in it, in its very essence, that hieratic character which it is the effort of supreme art to attain.  At times one is reminded of the most beautiful drama in the world, the Indian drama “Sakuntala”:  in that litter of leaves, brought in so touchingly for the swan’s burial, in the old hermit watering his flowers.  There is something of the same universal tenderness, the same religious linking together of all the world, in some vague enough, but very beautiful, Pantheism.  I think it is beside the question to discuss how far Wagner’s intentions were technically religious:  how far Parsifal himself is either Christ or Buddha, and how far Kundry is a new Magdalen.  Wagner’s mind was the mind to which all legend is sacred, every symbol of divine things to be held in reverence; but symbol, with him, was after all a means to an end, and could never have been accepted as really an end in itself.  I should say that in “Parsifal” he is profoundly religious, but not because he intended, or did not intend, to shadow the Christian mysteries.  His music, his acting, are devout, because the music has a disembodied ecstasy, and the acting a noble rhythm, which can but produce in us something of the solemnity of sensation produced by the service of the Mass, and are in themselves a kind of religious ceremonial.

III.  THE ART OF WAGNER