standpoint altogether
complete,
calm,
and
philosophical
; and
the
result of this review is the
present story of Tannhauser,
just
as
the
isolated
and
often
apparently
contradictory
incidents of the fight were recorded
in that
jungle of chaotic
emotions which
I
printed
under
the
title of " The
Soul
of
Osiris,"
calling it a history so that
my readers
might discover
for
themselves
(if
they
chose
to
take
the
trouble) the
real
continuity
in the apparent disjointedness.
The
history of any
man
who
seriously
and
desperately
dares
to force
a
passage
into the penetralia of nature
;
not
with
the calm
philosophy of the scientist, but with the
burn-
ing conviction that his immortal destiny
is
at stake
;
must
be
a strange one
:
to me at least strangely attractive.
The con-
stant illusions
;
the many disappointments
;
the bitter earnest-
ness of the man
amid
the grim humour, or
more
often
sheer
cacchination
of his surroundings
;
all the
bestial
mockery of
the
baffling
fiends
;
the still
more hideous mockery
in
which
the
Powers
of Good
themselves seem
to
indulge
;
doubt of
the reality of that which he seeks
;
doubt even of the seeker
;
the
irony of the whole strife
:
are fascinating
to
me
as they
are,
I
make no doubt,
to the majority of mankind.
This
is
the
subtler
form
of
that
mental
bewilderment
which
the Greek
Tragedians
were
so fond of depicting
;
as
subtle
in
effect,
yet grosser in its determining factors.
For we
are thus
changed
from
the times of Sophocles and Euripides
;
that the
fixed
ideas
of morality and religion which
they em-
ployed as the motives of pathos or of horror are now shattered.
lO