That there was something wrong with all his work Le Maistre well knew. Words and music, as the critics never failed to remind him, “just missed” that nameless “something” which would have made them good⁠—perhaps great. Moreover, he was sane enough to realize that the blame lay not with an uncomprehending public, but simply with himself. The spark of inspiration that was beyond question in all his work never gathered to the flame stage. Thus his productions warmed people, but did not light them. He understood well enough what was lacking⁠—and that no amount of mere painstaking “work” could put it right. But on one occasion Le Maistre achieved a singular and startling success. As a sober record of fact, concealed by initials, it was reported in the Proceedings of the French Psychological Society for that year; and people who believed in the Subliminal Self, the Higher Ego, and all that consoling teaching about an attainable God within, made great havoc with the facts. The way it came about, moreover, probably has a profound psychical significance. In any case, the result remains as the very best kind of tangible proof; for it was the only great thing he ever really achieved⁠—this Fairy Play (so called); and its beauty was absolutely arresting. He was something over fifty when he wrote it in its original form. The central idea came to him with the quick flash of a genuine inspiration; so did most of the music; but, in the working out of both, the fire had become smothered. The spark had never gathered into flame. The result was mediocrity. Yet, like so many artists, he confused what was in his mind and imagination with what he had actually set down upon paper; for, when he went over the score to himself, he heard the original beauty in his thoughts and believed he had transferred into his work his own memory of that beauty. The music and words themselves, however, had not caught it. Thus, those who heard the preliminary recital in his rooms were more or less bored according to their powers of divination. “It’s fine; it’s original,” they remarked, shaking their heads as they went home after the performance; “but just misses it!” The transformation that changed the common lead into gold as by some mysterious process of spiritual alchemy came about as follows:⁠— The little play was finished, and Le Maistre, having his eye upon a certain manager, went to that particular theatre one night in order to study the “feel” of it⁠—to catch the flavour of the house, the size of the stage, and any other details he could. The management had given him a dress circle box, and he saw admirably. It was characteristic of the man, rather, that he put himself to this farfetched kind of trouble. During the performance his mind was keenly at work. Yet he saw nothing of what was going on before his eyes; he had come with a definite purpose; he saw his own play all the time, heard his own music; watched his own creatures come on and go off among his own scenery. At the same time the music, light and colour provided a stimulus that acted upon his own imagination, and set all the finer machinery of his own creative genius working. Subconsciously he revised his own work, with the illuminating result that a white light shone through his mind and showed up all the flaws, all the places where he had “missed it”; all the passages where he had trailed off into banality. And a tremendous desire went crashing through his being to revise his work in the light of this knowledge. “I felt,” he said, “as though a great prayer had gone out of me⁠—a cry, as it were, to my higher self to come to my assistance. Never in my life have I wished anything so intensely before.” Then, in that curious fashion with which many artists must be familiar, it all faded again, and the reaction set in. The effort had no doubt exhausted him. He turned his attention to the actual performances on the stage before him, and lost the power to visualize his own piece. But the play⁠—trivial, vulgar and untrue to life⁠—wearied him; and he withdrew into the back of the box, and incontinently⁠—fell asleep upon the little plush sofa! When a considerable time later he woke up, the entire theatre was dark and empty; the piece was over; the audience had gone home to a man; and the building was deserted. Le Maistre at once realized what had happened, though he could not understand why the final applause had not waked him, and hurried into his overcoat. A faint glimmer pervaded the vast auditorium, for as he leaned over the edge he could just make out the rows of empty stalls, the scattered white patches where the discarded programmes lay, the music-stands of the orchestra, and the exit doors of glass where the pit began.