1842-1849.
REVOLUTION IN LIFE AND ART.
Success and Recognition--Hofkapellmeister to the Saxon Court--New
Clouds--"Tannhaeuser" Misunderstood--The Myths of "The Flying
Dutchman" and "Tannhaeuser"--Aversion to Meyerbeer--The Religious
Element--"Lohengrin"--The Idea of "Lohengrin"--Wagner's
Revolutionary Sympathies--The Revolution of 1848--The Poetic
Part of "Siegfried's Death"--The Revolt in Dresden--Flight from
Dresden--"Siegfried Words."
"_Give me a place to stand._"--Archimedes.
In an enthusiastic account of the first presentation of the "Flying
Dutchman" in Riga, May, 1843, it is said: "The 'Flying Dutchman' is a
signal of hope that we shall soon be rescued from this wild wandering
in the strange seas of foreign music and shall find once more our
blessed home." In a similar strain, the _Illustrierte Zeitung_ said:
"It is the duty of all who really cherish native art to announce to
the fatherland the appearance of a man of such promise as Wagner."
Indeed Wagner himself says that the success of the work was an
important indication that we need but write "as our native sense
suggests." That he himself perceived a new era of the highest and
purest outpouring of a new spirit is shown in the composition of this
year (1843), the "Liebesmahl der Apostel," wherein he quotes from the
Bible: "Be of good cheer for I am near you and My spirit is with you."
A chorus of forty male voices exultingly proclaimed this promise from
the high church choir loft in Dresden, on the occasion of the
Maennergesangvereins-Fest.
"Rienzi" was performed in October 1842, and the "Flying Dutchman"
January 2, 1843, both meeting with an enthusiastic reception. Wagner
himself had conducted the rehearsals and secured the support of
newly won friends and such eminent artists as Schroeder-Devrient
and Tichatschek. His success gained for him the distinction of
Hofkapellmeister to the Saxon Court. The position once held by Weber
was now his. The objects which he had sought to accomplish seemed
within reach and he heartily entered into the brilliant art life of
the city, the more so as hitherto he had not enjoyed it though
possessing the desire and knowledge to do so. Although "Rienzi"
retained a certain degree of popularity, the "Flying Dutchman" however
had not really been understood, and the more it was heard, the less
was it appreciated. How could it be otherwise amid such a public as
then existed in Germany? In the upper and middle classes French novels
were the favorite literature, while the stage was controlled by French
and Italian operas. With all their superficiality they combined
perfection in the art of singing, but failed to awaken any sense
of the intrinsic worth of our own nature. There were but few of
sufficiently delicate feeling to perceive in this composition the
continuation of the noble aims of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber. Wagner
himself while in Dresden was destined to continue the struggle against
all that was foreign as these three masters had done before him.
"Professional musicians admitted my poetic talent, poets conceded that
I possessed musical capacity," is the way he characterizes the
prevailing misunderstanding of his endeavors and his works, which
required a generation to overcome.
He constantly sought to direct public attention to the grander and
nobler compositions, such as Gluck's "Armide" and "Iphigenia in
Aulis," Weber's "Euryanthe" and "Freischuetz," Marschner's "Hans
Heiling," Spohr's "Jessonda," and other grand works for concerts, like
Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" and Bach's "Singet dem Herrn ein neues
Lied," all of which were performed in a masterly manner, while such
compositions as Spontini's "Vestalin" he at least helped to display in
the best light. He was also very active in having Weber's remains
brought from London. He not only composed a funeral march, for the
obsequies, upon motives from "Euryanthe," which was very powerful in
effect, but he also has reminded posterity of what it possesses in
this the youngest German master of the musical stage. "No musician,
more thoroughly German than thou, has ever lived," he said at the
grave. "See, now the Briton does thee justice, the Frenchman admires
thee, but the German alone can love thee. Thou art his, a beautiful
day in his life, a warm drop of his blood, a part of his heart." Thus
at times he succeeded in arousing the public. But on the whole, his
ideas were not accepted, and it retained its accustomed views and
continued in the old pleasures. Wagner began again to feel more
and more his isolated position. The complete misunderstanding of
Tannhaeuser, which he began to write when he first arrived in Dresden,
and the refusals of the work by other cities, Berlin among them,
declaring it "too epic," rendered this sense of isolation complete.
The recurrence of such experiences as these showed him how far his art
was still removed from its ideal and his contemporaries from the
comprehension of their own resources. He realized the fact that his
own improved circumstances had deceived him, and that in truth the
same superficiality of life and degradation of the stage prevailed
everywhere. The course of events during the next generation but proved
the truth of this. Whatever of merit was produced met with hostility,
as in the case of our artist. The growing perception of these facts
led him gradually to revolt against the art-circumstances of his time,
and as he became convinced that the condition of art was but the
result of the social and political, indeed of the existing mental
condition of the people, he at last broke out into open revolution
against the entire system. This very agitation of soul, however,
became the source of his artistic creations, wherein he attempted to
disclose grander ideals and nobler art, and they form therefore, as in
the case of every real artist, his own genuine biography. In tracing
the origin of his works, we follow the inner current of his life.
Thus far we have availed ourselves of the biographical notes which
Wagner, prior to the representation of the "Flying Dutchman," gave to
his friend Heinrich Laube for publication in the "Zeitung fuer die
elegante Welt." We are now guided further by one of the most stirring
spiritual revelations in existence, his "Communication to my Friends,"
in the year 1851, in that banishment to which his noblest endeavors
had brought him, written with his heart's blood, as a preface to the
publication of the three opera poems, namely, "Flying Dutchman,"
"Tannhaeuser" and "Lohengrin." It is the consummation of his artistic
as well as human development out of which grew his highest creations.
We must recur to the "Flying Dutchman," whose real name was "Hel
Laender," the guide of the deadship, or the fallen sun-bark, which,
according to the Teutonic legend, conveyed the heroes to Hel, the
region of perpetual night. We shall confine ourselves however to the
later version of the middle ages, the only one with which Wagner was
familiar. "The form of the 'Flying Dutchman' is the mythic poem of the
people; a primeval trait of humanity is expressed in it with
heartrending force," Wagner says to those who in spite of Goethe's
"Faust" had formed no conception of the vitality, and poetic treasures
that lay concealed in the myth. In its general significance the motive
is to be considered as the longing for rest from the storms of life.
The Greeks symbolized this in Odysseus, who, during his wanderings at
sea, longed for his native land, his wife, and home--"On this earth
are all my pleasures rooted." Christianity, which recognizes only a
spiritual home, reversed this conception in the person of the
"Wandering Jew." For this wanderer, condemned eternally to live over
again a life, without purpose and without pleasure, and of which he
has long since grown weary, there is no deliverance on earth. Nothing
remains to him but the longing for death. Toward the close of
the middle ages, after the human mind had been satiated with the
supernatural, and the revival of vital activity impelled men to
new enterprises, this longing disclosed itself most boldly and
successfully in the history of the efforts to discover new worlds.
An "impetuous desire to perform manly deeds" seized mankind as the
earth-encircling, boundless ocean came into view, no longer the
closely encircled inland sea of the Greeks. The longing of Odysseus,
which in the "Wandering Jew" has grown into longing for death, now
aims at a new life, not yet revealed, but distinctly perceived in the
prospective. It is the form of the "Flying Dutchman," in which both
expressions of the human soul are joined in a new and strange union,
such as the spirit of the people alone can produce. He had sworn to
sail past a cape in spite of wind and waves, and for that is condemned
by a demon, the spirit of these elements, to sail on the ocean through
all eternity. He can gratify the longing which he feels, through a
woman, who will sacrifice herself for his love, but to the Jew it was
denied. He seeks this woman therefore that he may pass away forever.
There is this difference however: She is no longer Penelope caring for
her home, but woman in general, the loving soul of mankind, which the
world has lost in its eager strife to conquer new worlds, and which
can only be regained when this strife shall cease and yield to a new
activity, truer to human nature.
"From the swamps and floods of my life often emerged the 'Flying
Dutchman,' and ever with irresistible attraction. It was the first
popular poem which took deep hold of my heart," says Wagner. At this
point his career began as a poet, and he ceased to write opera-texts.
It is true there was still much that was indecisive and confused in
the experiment, but the leading features are pictured verbally with
remarkable clearness, and the music invests them with a sense and
distinctness of convincing force as an inseparable whole, such as had
not been previously known in opera. It may be said that with the
"Flying Dutchman" a new operatic era began, or rather the attainment
of its dimly conceived destiny as a musical drama. It also expresses
the mental activity of the time and the longing for a new world, which
was to redeem mankind and secure for us an existence worthy of
ourselves. It still appears to us as the native land, encircling us
with its intimate associations, and yet there also appears in it the
longing for a return to our own individual identity, in which alone we
can find the traces of our higher humanity, which a narrowing and
degrading foreign influence had banished. Goethe's "Faust," Byron's
"Manfred," and Heine's "Ratcliff," all give utterance to the same
feeling, with more or less beauty and power; but the blissful repose
of deliverance really secured, they could not express with the
perfection displayed by Wagner. He was not only secure in this
advantage, but he was able to pursue it with increasing energy, so
as to push away to a great distance the obstacles which burdened the
time.
We perceive the same characteristic in "Tannhaeuser," which, it seems,
even at that time had impressed itself upon him with great force. This
legend also had its origin in the myths of nature. The Sun-god sinks
at eve on Klingsor's mountain castle in the arms of the beautiful
Orgeluse, queen of the night, from whose embraces the longing for
light drives him again at dawn. We must, however, also here confine
ourselves to the particular mediaeval form of the legend, as Wagner
himself relates it.
The old Teutonic goddess, Holda, whose annual circuit enriched the
fields, met the same fate after the introduction of Christianity, as
Wotan, that of having her kindly influence suspected and described as
malignant. She was relegated to the heart of the mountains, as her
appearance was supposed to indicate disaster. At a later period,
her name disappeared in that of the heathen Venus, to which all
conceptions of a being that entices to evil pleasures could be more
easily attached. One such mountain region was the Hoerselberg
(Orgelusa Mountain), in Thuringia, where Venus maintained a luxurious,
sensual court. Jubilant melodies were heard there, which led him,
whose blood ran riot, unwittingly into the mountain. A beautiful old
song, however, tells us that the noble knight, Tannhaeuser, mythically
the same as Heinrich von Ofterdingen, remained there a whole year,
and then was seized with the recollection of the life on earth, and
made a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain indulgence for his sins. It reads
thus:
"The Pope had a stick white and dry,
Cut from the branches so bare;
Thy sins shall all be forgiven,
When on it green leaves appear."
Tannhaeuser wanders again into the mountain. But the good sense of the
people knew what was just:
"To bring consolation to man,
The priest is commissioned of Heaven;
The penitent, sorrowing heart
Hath all its sins forgiven."
The condemnation of the penitent is the curse of the old church, for
according to the true doctrine of the Gospels, as accepted and
faithfully treasured by the German people after long struggles, it is
not deeds but faith that secures salvation. So in the progress of the
legend leaves sprout from the dry stick, for "high above the universe
is God and his mercy is no mockery."
Wagner gives to the loving Elizabeth the knowledge of this eternal
mercy and from a simple child-like being she ascends to the heights
of martyrdom. Not until one human soul had gained the strength to die
for his redemption is the vehemence of his own nature broken, and he
finds relief in death, thus verifying the essence of religion and
rejecting forever false church-doctrine.
"A consuming glowing excitement kept my blood and nerves in a state of
feverish agitation," Wagner says, speaking of the first presentation
of this "Tannhaeuser." His fortunate change of circumstances, contact
with a luxurious court, and the expectation of material success had
fostered a desire for pleasure that led him in a direction counter to
his real nature. There was no other way to satisfy this craving except
by following as an artist the reigning fashion and the general
striving after success. "If I were to condense all that is pernicious
and wearisome in the making of opera-music, I should call it
Meyerbeer," he says, "inasmuch as it ignores the wants of the soul and
seeks to gratify the eye and ear alone." After all, was it the mere
gratification of the senses that he really longed for? His aspirations
grew in the natural soil of those life-feelings which dictate that
religion and morality shall not destroy natural impulses, but sanctify
them. Before his soul stood a pure, chaste, maidenly image of
unapproachable and intangible holiness and loveliness. In his own
words, his nature passionately and ardently embraced the outward forms
of this conception whose essence was the love of all that is noble and
pure. No other artist ever possessed a deeper sense of the need of our
time. With this protest against the violence done our purely human
nature, he places us again on a solid footing and symbolizes in art
the highest accomplishment of religion--regeneration by knowledge. It
is to this that we owe the regeneration of our national life. The
religious element of our nature has preserved us and made us a great
nation.
He confesses he had been so intensely engrossed in composing
"Tannhaeuser," that the nearer he approached the end, the more the
idea possessed him that sudden death would prevent its completion. As
he wrote the last note it seemed to him as though his life had been
in danger till then. The "Flying Dutchman" was a protest against the
purposeless wanderings of the human mind in every external department
of knowledge, while "Tannhaeuser" was a bold historical protest
against all that would subject the hidden sense of truth in our nature
to violent interpretation and arbitrary dogmas. From this time forth
his sphere became the purely human, and in this too he shows us by
his powerful art that which is indispensable and eternal in human
existence joined with the complete realization of the only natural way
to develop all our qualities. We have come to "Lohengrin," conceived
in 1847, and completed in its instrumental parts in March, 1848. It
was in truth "his child of pain."
After the completion of "Tannhaeuser," his native sense of humor
prompted him to design a satirical play on the "Saengerkrieg auf
Wartburg," namely the "Meistersinger von Nuernberg," of which, more
further on. The painful experience of being misunderstood in all his
earnest efforts as a man and as an artist, his failure to make
the assistance he longed to give acceptable, drove him back with
passionate vehemence into a serious frame of mind, in which condition
he could well understand the Lohengrin material. Hitherto, in the
mystic twilight of its mediaeval presence, it had inspired him with
some degree of suspicion, but he now recognized in it a romance,
wherein was embodied the longing desires of pure human nature, and the
imperative necessity of love, as well as its artistic meaning.
The fundamental trait of this legend, as in "Tannhaeuser" and in the
flight of Odysseus from the embraces of sensualism, had already
appeared in the Greek myth of Zeus and Semele. Like the God from the
cloudy Olympian realms, so Lohengrin from the boundless ether to which
Christian imagination had assigned Olympus, descends to the human
female in the natural longing of love. There was an old tradition in
the legends of the people who dwelt near the sea, to the effect that
on its blue surface an unknown man of indescribable grace and beauty
approaches, whose resistless charms win every heart. He disappears
again, retreating with the waves, whenever it is sought to discover
who he is. So also in the Scheldt region once appeared a handsome
hero, drawn by a swan. He rescued a persecuted, innocent maiden, and
married her, but when she asked him who he was and whence he came, he
was compelled to forsake her. How does our poet interpret the legend?
Lohengrin, the son of Parcival, the royal guardian of the Holy Grail,
who represents the ideal in humanity, although he was probably
originally identical with the German Sun-god, who longs to rest in the
arms of night--this Lohengrin seeks the wife that believes in him, who
will not ask who he is and whence he came, but will love him as he is,
and simply as he appears to her. He sought the wife, to whom he need
not declare himself, need not justify himself, but who will love him
without question. Like Zeus, he had to conceal his divine nature, for
only in this way could he know that he was really loved, and not
simply admired, which was all he longed for when he descended from his
ethereal heights to the warm earth below. He longs to be human, to
experience the warm feelings of humanity, and gain a loving heart;
with these longings he descended from his blissful, lonely heights,
when he heard the cry of this heart for help in the midst of mankind.
The halo of his higher nature, however, betrays him. He can not but
appear as miraculous. The staring of the vulgar and the rancor of the
envious cloud the heart of the loving Elsa. Doubts and jealousy show
that he has not been understood but simply adored, and this draws from
him the confession of his divinity, after which he returns, his
purpose unaccomplished, to his solitude.
We must bear in mind how highly our poet even at that time prized this
artistic wealth. To Goethe, art was "like good deeds;" Schiller hoped
with its aid to unify the nation, and Wagner, especially after the
discovery of such grand art-material as those myths contained,
regarded it as the real fountain of health for the nation and the
time. We shall soon observe that at last his art embraced our highest
ideals in religion as well. Such an art, however, exists only in the
heart which believes in it, and we have seen how antagonistic was the
spirit of the time, particularly to this artist, who had emerged from
the blissful solitude of his own creative mind and sought the sympathy
of the warm human heart. He justly felt that the theme was a tragic
symbol of the time, and he was therefore enabled to present Lohengrin
as an entirely new artistic conception, something no poet had
previously succeeded in accomplishing.
More than this he discloses to us that which his Elsa imparted to
him--the nature of the feminine heart. "I could not help justifying
her in the outbreak at last of jealousy and at that moment for the
first time I fully comprehended the purely human nature of love," he
says. "This woman, who by passion is brought from the heights of
rapturous adoration back to her real nature and reveals it in her
ruin, this magnificent woman, from whom Lohengrin disappeared because
his peculiar nature prevented him from understanding her, I had now
discovered." The effect of this was to clarify his vision, as we shall
likewise learn. The lost arrow that he sent after this valuable
treasure had been his Lohengrin, which he had to sacrifice in order to
discover the track of the "true womanly" which Goethe was the first to
long for ardently, and which music had revealed as it were the sound
of a bell in the dark forest. This alone can explain why the
masculine egoism, even in so noble a form as our idealism had hitherto
assumed, was forced to yield to its influence. But this Elsa was only
the unconscious spirit of the people and the perception of this must
of necessity have made him, as he says, "a thorough revolutionist."
He felt that this spirit of the people was restrained by wrong
conceptions of morality and false ideals. He heard its lamentations,
and verily, if ever a genius served his people, then did the genius of
Wagner avail him as the worker of "good deeds." He prophetically
indicated at that time what subsequently became an exquisite reality.
"Only a good deed can help here," he writes after the completion of
"Lohengrin." "A gifted and inspired man must with good fortune attain
to power and influence who can elevate his inmost convictions to the
dignity of law. For it is possible after all, if chance will have it
so that a king will permit a competent man to have his way as well as
an incompetent one. The public can only be educated through facts. So
long as an immense majority is carried away by the mezza-voce of a
virtuoso, its needs are readily discerned and satisfied."
It is now our duty to record how he arrived at this remarkably
independent action of the artist; we follow his notes, as they furnish
the clearest testimony. Their stirring recital is touching enough for
any one who can look upon the nation in the light of the history of
mankind, to which has been assigned its own peculiar ideal problems.
In the meantime the revolution of 1848 had broken out. Although never
really much inclined toward politics, Wagner had foreseen its
necessity; but as soon as he came in contact with its various
elements, he recognized only too clearly that none of the warring
factions had the least conception of his own aims. Notwithstanding
this, he perfected a plan for the reorganization of the stage by which
alone under the circumstances the nation and the time could be
strongly impressed again with the ideal in thought and art. The
political rostrum showed soon enough how blunt were its arrows. And
what of the Catholic syllabus and Protestant "Culturkampf" as well?
Dead children born of dead mothers! Most of all it was important to
create anew for that stage the ideals which would serve to elevate the
time. Even while at work on "Lohengrin," which always made him feel as
if he were on an oasis in a desert waste and for which he gathered
strength from the performance of the Ninth symphony in Dresden,
Siegfried and Friedrich der Rothbart appeared to him. Each contained
the elements which lie nearest the heart. Each was a type and model of
our distinct characteristics. He recognized at once however that
Friedrich I. (Barbarossa) was only the historical regeneration of
Siegfried, and that the latter was in reality the youthful handsome
hero to form the object and centre of a work of art and to convey to
us in its fullness and beauty the purely human idea as Wagner
conceived it. How he found and interpreted this Siegfried, he has told
us in the pamphlet, "The Wibelungen, History from Legend" which
appeared in 1850.
The delight produced by the discovery of this "actor of reality,
this man in the fullness of highest and boundless power and most
indisputable loveliness" revealed to him by his Elsa, only intensified
for the present at least the feeling that in his best efforts and his
knowledge he stood sadly alone. His longing was intense, the more so
that in this actual life he could accomplish his purpose as Faust
says:
"The God, who in my breast resides,
He can not change external forces."
This longing grew until it seemed as if self-annihilation alone could
bring relief, and then appeared to him the image of Him whose death
brought salvation to mankind. He conceived the idea of picturing a
human "Jesus of Nazareth," to represent the universal rejection,
in all its malignity and rancor, to which Jesus fell a victim.
The reflection, however, that he certainly could not secure a
representation of his work under existing circumstances, and the
additional fact that after the Revolution, which seemed bound to
destroy every favorable condition, such a declaration of internal
struggle would have counted for nothing, induced him to leave the plan
unexecuted. Besides, in this year (1848), he had already finished
"Siegfried's Death," in its poetic form, and had even sketched some of
the musical thoughts connecting with that new world, to which he had
looked forward with such buoyant hope. At last came also the complete
rupture with the world that surrounded him, even while he was devoting
the best endeavors of his life to it. Wagner himself informs us of the
clear insight he had gained into the nature of the political movement.
Either the old state of things must remain intact or the new must
sweep it entirely away. He recognized the approach of the catastrophe
which was certain to engulf every one who was in earnest and unselfish
enough to desire a change of the deplorable conditions so generally
felt. The ancient spirit of a decayed past had outlived itself and
openly and insolently offered defiance to the existing and ruling
conditions. Knowing well the unavoidable decision which he would have
to form, he ceased all productive activity. Every stroke of the pen
appeared ridiculous, inasmuch as he could no longer deceive himself in
regard to his prospects. He spent these May-days of 1849 in the open
air, basking in the sunshine of the awakening spring and casting away
all egoistic desires.
At this time the revolt in Dresden occurred, which, as a sort of
forlorn hope, he thought might be the beginning of a general uprising
in Germany. "After what has been said, who could be so blind as not to
see that I had now no choice but to turn my back upon a world, to
which no ties of sympathy bound me," he says, thus clearly indicating
his active participation in the May-revolt. It was not long before the
Prussians appeared, who had only waited the signal from Dresden. With
many others Wagner had to take to flight. A long, sad banishment
followed, but out of its necessities and privations rose the full man
and artist who restored to his nation its ideals, or rather first
established the ideal in its perfection. How this conception came
to him is disclosed in the last words he uttered about the men and
circumstances which combined to wickedly conceal it. It is as bold as
it is inspiring, and it is only the deepest solicitude for our most
sacred treasures that could give utterance to such words. It reads:
"There is nothing with which to compare the sensation of pleasure I
experienced after the first painful impressions had been overcome,
when I felt myself free, free from a world of tormenting, ever
unsatisfied desires, free from conditions in which my aspirations had
been my sole absorbing nourishment. When I, persecuted and proscribed,
was no longer bound by any considerations to resort to a deception of
any kind; when I had given up every hope and desire, and with
unconstrained candor could say openly and plainly that I, the artist,
hated from the bottom of my heart this hypocritical world which
pretended to be interested in art and culture; when I could say to it
that not one drop of artist's blood flowed in all its veins, that it
had not one spark of manly culture or manly beauty,--then for the
first time in my life I felt myself completely free, happy, and
joyous, although I sometimes did not know where to conceal myself the
next day that I might still breathe the free air of heaven."
These are words such as a Siegfried might have spoken. From this time
on he did not rest until the Siegfried-deed was done and the sword was
thrust into the dragon's heart.
The preparations for it were conducted with untiring energy and
great wisdom. The works of art which he had already forged were the
sword. The true and noble art, which had begun with Goethe, was
now introduced in the various European centres of culture "with
considerate speed," and finally inspired in Germany, the very centre
of this culture and art, an understanding of their real elements. In
the modest Zurich where the banishment began, in London--Paris had
rejected it--in Petersburg, in Vienna, in Munich, and at last also
in Berlin, which at that time did not appear to have "one drop of
artist's blood in all its veins" the world's attention was aroused
anew by actual representations, though often only in parts, to the
fact, that the latter-day art of the last generation had removed us a
great distance from our ideals. And finally he succeeded, at first in
Munich, subsequently in Baireuth, in securing for the art of the stage
a proper representation, and with it an awakening of the age to a
correct perception of art as expressive of the ideal which stimulates
the whole world. The thrust which pierced the heart of the dragon of
the modern theatres was his "Parsifal," and the Siegfried, who dealt
the blow, gained with his art the slumbering bride, the re-awakening
heart of the nation and mankind.
Who is there to-day who will doubt that Faust denial of the curse and
the prophetic presentment of a new world? Is it not true that the
governing powers of the present time have seized upon the ideas in
politics and society, which were the kernel of the movement of 1848
and 1849? Whenever they shall understand the mental strivings of the
nation, as well as the political and military, then art and religion
will gain the dignity and the right to which they are entitled. The
revolt of Wagner was the revolt of the better soul of the nation which
had been estranged from itself. Thirty years of deeds have shown that
his word was the truth. We now come to their recital.