through the act before serious business begins.  It must be owned that Wagner has done his work superbly, even making use of it to a certain extent.  Girls bring provisions and drinks for Daland’s crew, and there is a lot of chorus and counter-chorus and dancing.  Then both men and girls call upon the Dutch crew.  There is no response.  The ship lies wrapt in gloom; and, half afraid, the girls and Daland’s men taunt them with being dead.  But suddenly the hour arrives for the Dutchman to sail.  With perfect calm all around, a hurricane shakes her sails and shrieks and pipes in the rigging, and the waters roar and foam; the crew come to life and call for their captain in a series of unearthly choruses.  Daland’s men, horror-struck, make the sign of the cross; the spectres give a “taunting laugh” and subside; once again all is peace, and the sinister vessel lies there, the air seeming to thicken and grow blacker about her.

The women have gone off; the sailors occupy themselves with eating and drinking; and Senta, pursued by Eric, comes on.  He has heard of the intended marriage, and begs passionately that she shall not sacrifice herself, ending with a cavatina—­a cavatina by Richard Wagner!—­in vain.  But Vanderdecken has heard all from the wings—­another bit of old-fashioned stage trickery, like the “asides”—­and resolves that Senta shall not sacrifice herself.  “For ever lost,” he cries, realizing that he is renouncing his last chance.  Senta declares her determination to follow him—­she will redeem him whether he wishes it or not; in a regular set trio she, he and Eric thrash the matter out; she is not to be shaken; Eric gives a despairing cry which brings on the women folk and the sailors.  The Dutchman says farewell, pipes up his spectral crew, who heave the anchor, and he goes on board.  As the ship moves off Senta throws herself into the water; the ship falls to pieces; the sun rises, and in its beams the “glorified forms” of the pair are seen mounting the skies.  Senta has had her way:  she has worked out her destiny and “saved” the wanderer.  The curtain falls.

This is the first of the genuine Wagner dramas, the first, therefore, from which the Wagnerians have drawn, or into which they have read, “lessons.”  As we get on I shall try to show that no moral can be tacked on to any of Wagner’s works.  But supposing that he did wish to teach us something in the Dutchman, what on earth can it be?  Not, surely, that one should not swear rash oaths in a temper?  We have all done that and needed no redeemer.  There is no touch of essential veracity in the old legend, a bit of puerile medieval fantasy; there is no sort of proportion between the trivial offence and the appalling punishment; even in an age which thought to oppose the will of the Almighty the rankest blasphemy it can never have been considered eternally just that a righteous and merciful Creator should deal out such a punishment.  Besides, in the ancient legend, as in Wagner’s book, the