I have already indicated sundry special aspects of this sanctimoniousness.  Following its aspirations a little further we shall come upon a new field, across which our investigation on and about conducting must now lead us.  Some time ago the editor of a South German journal discovered “hypocritical tendencies” (muckerische Tendenzen) in my artistic theories.  The man evidently did not know what he was saying; he merely wished to use an unpleasant word.  But my experience has led me to understand that the essence of hypocrisy, and the singular tendency of a repulsive sect of hypocrites (Mucker), may be known by certain characteristics:—­they wish to be tempted, and greedily seek temptation, in order to exercise their power of resistance!—­Actual scandal, however, does not begin until the secret of the adepts and leaders of the sect is disclosed;—­the adepts reverse the object of the resistance—­they resist with a view to increasing the ultimate sense of beatitude.  Accordingly, if this were applied to art, one would perhaps not be saying a senseless thing if one were to attribute hypocritical tendencies to the queer “school for chastity” of this Musical Temperance Society.  The lower grades of the school may be conceived as vacillating between the orgiastic spirit of musical art and the reticence which their dogmatic maxim imposes upon them—­whilst it can easily be shewn that the higher grades nourish a deep desire to enjoy that which is forbidden to the lower.  The “Liebeslieder Walzer” of the blessed Johannes (in spite of the silly title) might be taken as the exercises of the lower grades; whereas the intense longing after “the Opera,” which troubles the sanctimonious devotions of the adepts, may be accepted as the mark of the higher and highest grades.  If a single member, for once only, were to achieve a success with an opera, it is more than probable that the entire “school” would explode.  But, somehow, no such success has hitherto been achieved, and this keeps the school together; for, every attempt that happens to fail, can be made to appear as a conscious effort of abstinence, in the sense of the exercises of the lower grades; [Footnote:  For a curious example of such exercises, see Ferdinand Hiller’s “Oper ohne Text;” a set of pianoforte pieces, a quatre mains.] and “the opera,” which beckons in the distance like a forlorn bride, can be made to figure as a symbol of the temptation, which is to be finally resisted—­so that the authors of operatic failures may be glorified as special saints.

Seriously speaking, how do these musical gentlemen stand with regard to “The opera?” Having paid them a visit in the concert-room to which they belong, and from which they started, we shall now, for the sake of “conducting,” look after them at the theatre.