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The writer refers to the collections of money made in India for present war purposes, though millions and millions of people there know nothing about this war, and famine and plague decimate vast districts. "Englishmen in this country," he continues, "are very keen about what they call their prestige. They are determined to maintain it at any price. It seems to me strange, very strange indeed, that in money matters they should forget it." He then pleads for "spending such collected money in the relief of the famine which has been ravaging India." In an exposition comprising six folio pages he points out the mistakes committed by Government in its ordinances concerning the plague. He does not do so from any religious prejudice. In his letter he sympathetically mentions Huxley and Herbert Spencer. But he cannot conceal his apprehension about the opinions of the hundreds of millions who are subject to English rule having often been unnecessarily offended. This combined with the heavy taxation of the suffering masses and the offensive social treatment of the higher-class natives by Englishmen in India, constitutes, in his view, a danger not to be lightly disregarded.

Of his ideas about the war, and his The Fortnightly Review.

whole communication, including his name, the writer says that I can make any use I like. Remembering the laws or rather ordinances, under which India is governed, this suggestion is certainly a proof of courage and, it seems to me, a serious sign of the times.

Summing up the whole situation, I hold that there are great perils ahead for England. Friendly warning may be unwelcome to those heedlessly and headlessly bent upon a course which was formerly denounced by its own originator as the most risky and the most baneful imaginable. But for the calm observer there can be no doubt that the conscience of the civilized world has, in this South African war, been as much shocked as if some Con. tinental Power were to destroy by force of arms the independence and the Republican institutions of Switzerland, or the independence and the somewhat Conservative institutions of the Netherlands. An outcry of indig nation at such a deed would ring all over the world. Such an outcry has rung, in the present instance, from Europe to America, and it is being taken up even by cultured Indians of the most loyal character. The friends of England abroad are angered and sad at heart. Her enemies are reckoning upon what may befall her some day, when she will be assailed by a variety of complications. More than one stormcloud is already in course of formation. The time may not be too far when those answerable for what is done now will appear before History, not as the Makers of new Imperial Glories, but as the thoughtless Unmakers of England.

Karl Blind.

CONVERSATIONS WITH GOUNOD.

The following notes of conversation with Charles Gounod seem so characteristic of the man and of the artist that, on reading them over after the lapse of many years, I have thought it a pity to reconsign them to oblivion in the old desk where they lay hidden. I give them to the public, therefore, just as they are, because if I began to take out all reference to myself, they would no longer have the merit of showing the kind and affectionate disposition of the Master who did not care what trouble he took to please people whom he liked.

I was passionately fond of music, and I had the intense desire to see something of a life for and in art which takes hold of most young folks who have heard operas and read books about musicians, but whom a cruel fate has kept hitherto afar from what seems to them a world of enchantment. I endorsed upon faith the saying of George Sand: "To be an artist,-only that makes life worth living!"

In this state of mind my happiness may be imagined when a friend asked my mother and me to accompany her to one of Gounod's Sunday afternoon receptions. It was at the time when he was living in London after the French war. I felt a little alarmed when I was introduced to the Master, but he at once placed me at my ease, and thus began one of the pleasantest friendships of my life. For three or four months I saw Gounod frequently, and after some of these interviews I wrote down what he said, exactly in his own words. As a rule, he spoke to us in English, which he had not learned very long, but which he spoke with a command and felicity of language rare among foreigners. Sometimes, however, he was at a loss for a word and

used a French one, and then he would go on talking in his own tongue. If he was speaking of something that interested him he was carried away by his subject, and seemed to irradiate an enthusiasm which it was impossible to resist.

One of his favorite themes was Palestrina. "Palestrina's music," he said, "is holy music. I do not say sacred music, because God knows what is not brought out as such in these days. But it is holy; it is the music of worship, passionless, calm, pure, majestic, strong as the Faith! It is outside of earth and its passions; it swells and falls like the waves of the sea; it is the music of the supernatural." And again, another day, he said: "Palestrina's music is immense, it is like the sea. A gentleman said to me, 'What was that tedious piece by Palestrina?" I answered him by a little story. When my mother-in-law, who is a very excitable, enthusiastic person, first saw the sea, she exclaimed, 'Oh, my friend, how magnificent, how sublime!' My father-in-law answered, "There is certainly a great deal of water.' Yet, you see, a great deal of water makes something, it makes the ocean. But Palestrina's music requires a long training and tradition [to execute]. I can assure you that when I heard that piece in St. Peter's at Rome, it filled me; it took away my breath with its grandeur."

I set down now some of his stray remarks.

"I believe that Mozart was neither more nor less than Raphael in another form. His genius is the same, is identical, in another art."

"Singing is expression, singing is painting. The voice should interpret every thought and feeling differently.

So is music altogether. Should I make an angel speak as Faust would speak to Margaret, or should I address a Pagan goddess as I should address a Christian saint?"

"I am now writing something, something of the Annunciation. And the other night I was thinking of the words: "The Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the House of David, and the Virgin's name was Mary. And the Angel came unto her and said "Hail!" and then at the words, 'He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David,' I heard such chords, such music, as I never heard before. I wrote it all down."

If I were only twenty, I would go into a convent for ten years. I would be there alone with my God like Moses on Sinai; I would work towards my ideal. But there is no faith in the world; people can hear but one word, money, money, money, money."

"I do not gain, I lose by hearing my works performed. I cannot let my 'Polyeucte' come out for there are no tenors [1873]. I could not bear, as I have borne, to hear my work destroyed and murdered; I could not endure that suffering; it would kill me. Now, you know, the greatest, perhaps the only, pleasure of art is the conception. What I hear can never be adequately interpreted. I think the second act, the baptism of Polyeucte, is the finest I ever wrote."

"Music is the most beautiful art, but it is the most detestable profession. But is that not right? That which belongs most to heaven should fare worst on earth."

"People will run after all that is superficial and frivolous, the plaisanterie de l'art. Yes, after Offenbach and his kind. I hate that sort of music!

And then, look at Beethoven! Look at him after the long martyrdom of his life dying with the words on his lips, 'And yet I thought that I had something here!' Placing his hand on his head a little while before he died and saying, 'And yet I thought that I had something here!' Ah, it is terrible! But you will find it always; like Jesus, the greatest and the best live among robbers to die among robbers."

"The beautiful in art is the calm, the deep. Go to the British Museum and see the statues of Phidias; they are a school for every art, for art is one; there is no separate rule. They are calm and restful. Nothing contorted, nothing convulsionnaire is artistic."

"Against the Perfectly Righteous there were found two false witnesses. One of the most magnificent words in the Gospel in which all the words are magnificent is, where it is written, after Jesus had been persecuted by all the wretched busybodies and slanderers, 'But he was going,'-going away from the barking of dogs, the sneers of the Pharisees, the turmoil and toil of life."

"Il n'y a pas de grand homme; ce qui est grand dans l'homme, ce n'est pas l'homme, c'est Dieu."

"Beethoven sold his Ninth Symphony for £20!"

"Quand je travaille c'est que je suis en paradis. Je me dis toujours que quand je mourrai je verral ce que je cherche. I shall see what I search for! On ne parle pas de l'art dans le ciel mais il est dit qu'on chantera."

Once when advised to take rest he answered: "Qu'est ce que je puis faire si je ne travaille pas? Work is life." "I have a conviction that my 'Redemption' will be my last work. What can I do after that? And in opera, what can I do now? There are Mireille, Marguerite and Juliette; these are my three women. But if we put on one side Mireille, and say, Marguerite, Juliette and Polyeucte-what more can

I do? Friendship? Yes, but is friendship a very musical subject?"

"I began to think of 'Faust' as a subject for an opera when I was twenty, and I wrote it at thirty-eight in two and a half years. So in this way it is certainly the chief work of my life."

"What is hard is that when we have become most worthy and most capable of doing good we must die. But perhaps it is that God is determined to show that He can do without our help, that He has no need of men to carry out His work and His will. Yes, it is hard, too, to see the young and gifted taken away from us; but they may have left their mark, they may have impressed something of good and noble on some other soul and so their mission is accomplished. I have in Paris a dear friend whom I have known ever since she and her husband were children, and they are to me as my own children, and every year for some time I passed some months with her in her château in the country. We used to take long walks in the summer in the park and talk about all things, art, music, religion, life, death, philosophy. And she once asked me, as you do, why I did not write a book on all this? But that I could not do; I could not write as I talk; music is my book. But if what I may say does good to those who hear it, so much the better. I told my friend that if she, having a good memory, could write down what I say, she could make what use of it she liked; but I cannot write it down."

"I am sometimes in the greatest state of hope and joy, and sometimes in despair in darkness. It has always been this struggle in me between light and darkness. L'équilibre-it is that we strive after and that we never quite attain; we are always rocking to one side or to the other."

In his dark moments Gounod always thought that he would never be able

"My musical-box

to write any more.
is shut," he used to say.

I repeated to him the remark of a friend: "Gounod's music is the music that lifts me to heaven, and it is the music that will be sung in heaven." "Well," he said, laughing, "I hope the music of heaven will be a good deal better than mine." Going on in the same strain he said that he hoped that he should be near his friends in heaven, "For what should I do with all the commonplace people there?"

Some reviews of his "Requiem" came in. I said that I hoped some day to hear it perfectly performed. He answered: "One day my 'Requiem' will be perfectly performed, on the day of my death. Then will be my supreme revenge on my critics; I shall say to them, 'You are dead, but I live.'""

"The critics," he added, "have always been against me; they have had a system, namely, to bury every new work of mine and then, after a while disinter it so as to kill the next one."

It was very interesting to hear him teaching his choir. Once he said to them: "Now in this part I want you to sing as if you were silent; it seems a paradox, but I want you to imitate silence by your singing. If I sing like that no one need be silent, but if I sing like this all the room must be in silence."

Though he always had a word of praise for them Gounod's patience was tried by the not unnatural ambition of amateurs to sing his music to him. I remember his face while a gentleman with a rather nice voice but a wooden style, performed "Salve dimora." Не was delighted, however to meet with real talent. We introduced to him a boy of eleven named Claude Jacquinot whose clever playing on the violin we

In the end Gounod modestly suggested that no music of his own should be performed at his funeral. The mass was sung to a Gregorian chant.

had heard at a musical party given by the late Mrs. Pitt Byrne. Received with a kiss of encouragement, the little fellow performed Gounod's "Ave Maria," accompanied by the composer. Claude was modest, but not in the least nervous; he played afterwards an elaborate tour de force, and then a little piece of his own. The Master pressed him to his heart; "This is a good boy!" he said; "now we will have the sisterpiece to that, a little song I wrote when I was thirteen,"-which proved to be the charming "Fauvette." I mentioned that it was my recollection of the interview between Mendelssohn and "the wonderful boy Joachim" that had led to our arranging the present meeting. "In this you were his godmother," said Gounod. Then, turning to the boy, he continued: "I bless him; if my wishes are realized he will have a great future. But you must always remember that the more you learn the more you will have to learn." To the parents, who were now much excited, he said: "If your son is as good as his organization he will be a great source of glory and happiness to you. I give him my blessing. I wish that I could give him all that I have in me, all that is here," and he touched his forehead. Claude told him that he was writing an opera, of which the overture and many of the songs were ready; Gounod told him to bring them the next time he came. Then the boy said something which Gounod could not make out, so he asked me to explain. It was this: "I wish you could have all the money Mr. C. gets for your writings." This practical observation from lips like a cherub's brought us all down to earth."

Some one present remarked how kind Gounod was to show such interest in the young violinist. To this he replied: "We should all help each other; what

I soon lost sight of the Jacquinots, but I believe that Claude won honorable though not extraordinary distinction in France.

we have, we have it only that we may give it. I had the honor and happiness of knowing Mendelssohn. It was in 1843, five years before his death. When I was in Berlin, his sister, Mme. Hensel, whom I had known at Rome, gave me a letter of introduction to her brother at Leipzig. I was with him for four days, from morning to evening. Ah, he was so good! What he was to me I cannot tell you. He convoquait (How do you say that in English, convoked?) the Choral Society, which was en vacances, for me only! And he gave me the score of his symphony in A, the one dedicated to the Queen of England; you know it?" Here he hummed the opening motive. "Is it not lovely? Mendelssohn was an angel upon earth. But what he was is shown in his works; you may all know what he was."

On hearing that Dr. H. was acquainted with the Mendelssohn family at Berlin, Gounod asked after each of the surviving members, and especially the "stern-faced" Paul, who had been Dr. H.'s pupil in mathematics.

To wind up the afternoon, we had "Abraham's Request" and "The Song of Solomon," two of Gounod's most beautiful sacred songs beautifully sung. When there was no one to play the violoncello accompaniment to "The Song of Solomon" Gounod used to hum it, and the deep expression which he threw into the notes was never equalled to my hearing even by that touching instrument. I may here recall that I heard him say more than once that he thought English was the best language for religious music. He much admired the severer school of English Church music, as, for instance, the anthems of Dr. Wesley and of his father Samuel Wesley.

One winter at London I was ill with a cold at our hotel in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East, the same in which Anthony Trollope died, and which he cele

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