When it was known how Parrhasius had painted his Prometheus the people stormed his house, crying out for death to the murderer. At last Parrhasius appeared in all his pomp and faced the crowd and all its cries. Then, slowly lifting his painting, as though offering something sacrosanct, he showed the Athenian people the Prometheus.
An awesome shudder of amazement, of wonderment at its highest, came to the populace who saw the great picture—the picture of human anguish and final defeat by death. The summit, the uttermost, of tragic grandeur seemed to be unveiled there for the first time.... Silence, as of a temple, held the people for a time; then some hostile cries broke out afresh. But they were futile, and died, lost in the splendid thunder of glory.
THE HILL OF HORSEL
In the month of August eighteen ninety-one, shortly after I had heard, at Bayreuth, Tannhäuser, Tristan and Parsifal, for the ninth time, I spent a fortnight in the verdant Marienthal near the ancient city of Essenach.
The room I occupied looked out on the west upon the lofty Wartburg, and on the east upon Mount Horsel, that peak which used to be called by priests and poets the Venusberg. The star of Wolfram appeared in the bright sky of this land of Wagner.
I was then so prone to sun that after leaning my elbows once upon the sill of the western window before Luther’s towers I determined never to return there even in my dreams. The Venusberg attracted me to it.