has finished it, he will have finished everything. His work is ended; if
he lived another hundred years he would not have the heart to add
anything more to it. The only thing that remains--and it is what he is
about to do--is to wrap himself in silence and die.

[Footnote 63: _Mémoires_, I, 307.]

[Footnote 64: About this time he wrote to Liszt regarding _L'Enfance du
Christ_: "I think I have hit upon something good in Herod's scena and
air with the soothsayers; it is full of character, and will, I hope,
please you. There are, perhaps, more graceful and pleasing things, but
with the exception of the Bethlehem duet, I do not think they have the
same quality of originality" (17 December, 1854).]

Oh, mournful destiny! There are great men who have outlived their
genius; but with Berlioz genius outlived desire. His genius was still
there; one feels it in the sublime pages of the third act of _Les
Troyens à Carthage_. But Berlioz had ceased to believe in his power; he
had lost faith in everything. His genius was dying for want of
nourishment; it was a flame above an empty tomb. At the same hour of his
old age the soul of Wagner sustained its glorious flight; and, having
conquered everything, it achieved a supreme victory in renouncing
everything for its faith. And the divine songs of Parsifal resounded as
in a splendid temple, and replied to the cries of the suffering Amfortas
by the blessed words: "_Selig in Glauben! Selig in Liebe_!"




II