His life was simple; so were his strivings, his longings, his hopes.

Yet when it came to the defence or celebration of his spiritual possessions his soul was filled with such a spirit of heroic daring, such a glow of enthusiasm, as are not to be paralleled among another of the peoples of antiquity.

He thus became a fit subject for only one of the arts--music; in this art for only one of its spheres, the sublime, the most appropriate and efficient vehicle of which is the oratorio.
One part of this argument seems to me irrelevant; the other not firmly founded in fact.

It does not follow that because the Greek conscience evolved the conceptions of rebellious pride and punitive Fate while the Hebrew conscience did not, therefore the Greeks were the predestined creators of the art-form out of which grew the opera and the Hebrews of the form which grew into the oratorio.

Neither is it true that because a people are not disposed toward dramatic creation themselves they can not, or may not, be the cause of dramatic creativeness in others.