thit a great musician should be the best of teachers. The result is that people impose on his good nature as well as his kindness and courtesy, on his dislike to say no, on his desire to inspire affection which makes him affectionate to others. Professional and amateur performers flock to him in crowds in order to profit by the noble teaching and lucid conceptions which he displays about his art, to such an extent that the greater part of his time is spent upon them. He laments over it, and blames himself for it, "for," says he, "it is quite right to give one's self away, but it is a crime to squander one's self." In his momentary indignation--never more than skin-deep-he cries out jest ingly: "People come to me for every thing! One of these days I shall have to supply pots of blacking or nurses. Yet the duty of a pear-tree is to bear pears, and of a musician to produce music, and not to constitute himself a registry office. An artist is bound to give to others what he has in his soul, what he has received from nature, not as a free

gift to gratify his personal feelings, but in

order to transmit it to others in the best form that he can find. He ought to send He ought to send the rays of his soul on to other souls, but not spend his life in writing letters and receiving visitors. All that I ask God to give me in Paradise is a tiny corner of perfect peace, where I may devour counterpoint to my heart's content."

III.

Another artistic question on which opposite opinions are held is that of "originality. Yet who can fail to agree with Gounod's views about it?

"Originality is the sine qua non of the artist. Whoever aspires to the rank of artist should take for his motto that charming line of Alfred de Musset :

'Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre.' If the glass is large, so much the better. But the first article in the artist's code is not to do violence to his talent; to look for inspiration in his own heart, and not to ask others for advice except in matters of technical production, is the first and only law to which he should conform. Essentially a creator, he fails in his duty if he degrades himself to the position of a copyist."

sense. Gounod often expresses his regret for this.

"Every day we hear young persons saying of their productions: I compelled myself to write with originality. My unhappy friend, don't you know that the moment compulsion or effort comes in, originality is gone? The sincerity is not a matter of will, nor to be very essence of originality is sincerity, and found by hunting after it. When the artist works hand in hand with nature, it is his personal feeling which gives to his work of art its character of originality. People are always confusing originality and fancifulness, yet the two are absolutely distinct. Fancifulness is an abnormal, a morbid condition; it is only mental derangement in a modified form, and deserves to be treated as a pathological case; it flies off at a tangent, as is admirably expressed by its synonym, eccentricity. On the other hand, originality is the clearly marked line which connects the individual with the

common mind-centre of the universe. Since mother, Nature, and a distinct father, the a work of art is the offspring of the universal Artist, originality is simply and solely a declaration of paternity."

that the artist should possess this origiWhile Gounod requires above all things nality, which he so admirably defines and so fully possesses, he does not, of course, deny that certain artistic organizations require to be carefully adjusted.

"Just as on a tree there never are two leaves perfectly alike, so in human beings one never finds two absolutely identical persons. But the human kingdom, like other kingdoms, comprises a certain number of infinitely subdivided species, among which the different intellectual temperaments are distributed. Every artist is a descendant of one of his predecessors, which does not, however, mean that he imitates him."

Does Gounod mean, then, that the artist must despise the teaching and the examples of those masters from whom, under pretence of doing independent work, the living are always ready to detach themselves, with a strange desire to make havoc of the traditions of the past? Some years ago, when an energetic attack was being made in France against sending to Rome those successful candidates at the Institute who gained the State grants, and particularly against sending musical students, Gounod expressed his views on the matter in the following language :—

"What strikes me at the outset in this denunciation of the Roman School is that it is only the outcome of a desire more or less frankly expressed, and which sums up very fairly the whole programme of its opponents: 'No more teachers. Let us learn to fly with

our own wings.' No doubt this is the real meaning of the phrase Modern Art.' In the same way let us say, 'No more education, no more ideas got by experience and handed down to us; that is, no more capital, no more patrimony or inheritance, no more of the past, no more tradition, no more intellectual fatherhood!' This lands us in simple, spontaneous generation, for there is no middle position; we must either have teaching, or we must have knowledge by intuition. Observe that those who extol this system are precisely the persons who are never weary of speaking of the school of the future.' The future! What right have they to appeal to it, when to-morrow they will themselves be a portion of this past with which they will have nothing to do? Genius, I am told, is not got by teaching; either you have it or have it not; no one can bestow it upon a person who has it not; none can take it away from the man who has it. Agreed for this is indisputable. But equally true is the saying of a great artist (Ingres), who was well qualified to speak on the subject, that there is no art without science. No, no; no one communicates genius because it is incommunicable, because it is an absolutely personal gift to its possessor. But what is capable of being communicated and transmitted is the language by means of which genius finds expression, and without which it is only dumb and powerless. Were not Raphael, Mozart, and Beethoven men of genius? Yet did they therefore hold themselves entitled to reject with scorn the traditional teaching which not only initiated them into the practice of their art, but also showed to them the right road to lead them safely to their goal, saving them thereby a considerable loss of time in hunting after a certainty which generations of experience had guaranteed for them. Truly it is playing with common sense when people attempt to dethrone history by force of false conclusions. One might as well say that the orator and the writer need not learn anything about their language, their grammar, or their dictionary."

Gounod does not believe in facile art in spite of having himself produced with such lavishness and facility; his only faith is in a work which is the result of industry. Still, he holds that there are two kinds of industry. The one is the scholar's who, while he listens to his teacher's instructions, assimilates to himself the practical methods: "he is learning to learn." Once in possession of the intellectual tools fashioned for him by instruction, man no longer finds the elements of study from without but from within; labor becomes "meditation before the altar of the soul." He will still look for examples in masterpieces, but solely in order to see how they are built up. His inspiration he will find by studying his own heart, and it is in this self-communing that the artist's in

dustry consists. wholly within

"We must look neither nor wholly without," Gounod is never tired of repeating, and

therein lies the secret of his artist's calmness. He admits no co-operation, save that of Nature alone :

"In a word, the Real by itself is simply a servile copying, but the Ideal by itself is the meandering of a will-o'-the-wisp. A work of art, therefore, is the result of uniting imagination and reality; it is at once finite and infinite. The artist finds in Nature the thought which, quickened by contact with his soul and brought to being by the force of his intellect, leaps from him in an artistic form. No stranger's hand ought to take part in this labor."

What Gounod says in conversation in the manner above quoted has been expressed by him in an academical lecture under the form of language which, though abstract, is still perfectly clear in meaning :

"The progress of intellectual development consists in passing from external and tangible realities to feelings, and from feelings to rea. son. St. Augustine sums this up admirably in one of those pointed and luminous expressions so frequently to be found in his writings: Ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab interioribus ad superiora' ('From without to within, from within to above ')."

6

The whole spirit of Gounod is in these words; his elevated thought, the breadth of his artistic views, his exquisiteness of form, even down to a quotation from the Fathers on whose writings—a healthy and strong sustenance-he fervently nurtured himself for many years of his youth.

Assuredly Gounod understands the value of education. He knows what it costs to become a master in one's art, and how before taking his turn of usefulness as an inspirer of and a model for others, he was obliged by hard study, untiring patience, and perfect humility to take example by others himself. Yet he will maintain that the very fire which forms the creative faculty exists unseen in certain beings who are under some mysterious dispensation of fate; contact with others makes it flash out, hard work sets it glowing, and yet it is always a spontaneous fire kindled by nature's hand and not by man's. "Only those who know can be taught," is a favorite phrase of his, recalling thereby the saying of his first teacher, that master of counterpoint, Reicher, when he said to Madame Gounod, who had brought to him her son, then thirteen years old, in order

to consult him about the latter's capacity, "This boy knows everything; he has only to be taught it." Following out this idea, Gounod is fond of using the wellknown expression of Socrates when he compares himself to a man midwife, one who helps others to give birth to that

which is within them.

In his eyes, then, "education is not a creative but a fertilizing element." He allows that one genius may assist others to the birth; but he refuses to admit that a genius has the capacity of producing another in his own image. So far as he is personally concerned, he absolutely denies the supposed influences which, if one is to believe the majority of his biographers, certain musicians are said to have exercised upon him. He acknowledges his indebtedness to them for "musical vibrations" experienced over and over again by his artistic organization. Among the powerful impressions which showed him his work in life, three stand out conspicuously, three that he has never forgotten, and which make up the true history of his vocation. The following account of them was given to me from his own lips. The first takes us back to his childhood. In the winter of 1825, when barely seven years old, he was living with his parents in the Rue des Grands Augustins, that old and gloomy district on the left bank of the Seine in which his infancy was spent. One evening his mother took him to the neighboring theatre, the Odéon, where

Weber's Freischütz in Castil Blaze's atro

cious translation was being then played for the first time in France under the title of Robin des Bois. In those days it was the custom to disarrange, under pretence of arranging, the lyrical masterpieces of Germany, and goodness know how many crimes of treason to art were then committed by managers without faith and librettists without conscience. One musician went so far as to "" adapt" Don Giovanni to the stage of the opera. In this imperfect rendering, Freischütz was indifferently performed by singers whose names have passed into oblivion. Yet at this performance the future author of Faust experienced his first artistic emotion, a "simple sensation," as he says

"For at that time of life the power of reflection has not yet come into existence. Just as rays of light are doubled in intensity when reflected in a mirror, so feelings are all the

deeper and keener in proportion as the man possesses the faculty of introspection. Therefore it is a mistake to believe that sensibility becomes blunted as years advance; it only becomes finer and more delicate, provided, of course, that the intellectual powers remain intact. That is why love in early youth is imperfect, being then purely external and superficial, and not enlarged by the crystallization wrought in a soul when it is fully developed.

To

go

to the theatre as a reward, say, for some back to the sober little lad, taken good copybook writing, and who, stirred to the depth of his semi-conscious child soul, was filled with a kind of religious ecstasy and plunged into speechless adoration. This listening to what is probably the purest of lyrical dramas was a happy initiation into the splendors of music. The fantastic scene when the magic bullets are being cast probably caused him some alarm; he does not, however, remember it. What especially caught his attention was the hunters' chorus. "Are they going to fire?" he asked in terror. the calmness of the music dispelled his fear, and he listened with rapt attention; the orchestration escaped his ear. not a single one of the exquisite details of Some time afterward, when he took up the score for the first time, all came back to his memory as clear and precise as if he had heard them the day before. From this fact we can judge how keen the sensation must have been at a time when the faculties of conscious reasoning are non-existent. Sixty-five years have since passed,

But

and this instinctive admiration that the child felt has only become strengthened in the man of mature years and thought.

cate sense of the picturesque in nature, the "The crystal clearness of Weber, his deligrandeur of his conceptions, the thrilling harmony of his expression, and the simplicity of the methods whereby he attains the refined grace of outline and of absolutely pure modelling, lit up, so to speak, by mysterious gleams of light-all these are merits rare enough at all times, and more so nowadays than ever before, and must be highly appreciated by every soul that loves beauty in its noblest aspects."

Such is the judgment pronounced by the author of Roméo upon the author of the Freischütz.

Six years later, the student, whose industry and good conduct had earned him a special holiday, went to the Théâtre Italien to hear Rossini's Otello, sung by those two incomparable "stars" Rubini

and Marie Malibran. The artistic seed sown by nature in the child's breast which had already quivered under the charm of Weber's music had slowly developed by unconscious workings within. By this time, his was a true artist's soul, vibrating in harmony with the heart-strings of the great singer. It is no longer a question of a vague awakening of sensibility due to the grace and picturesque turn of a melody the dramatic utterances of a voice of gold thrilled this virgin heart of his still a stranger to troublous feelings. The effect was overpowering, the impression indelible. On his return to school the student dreamed of nothing but the woman to whom he owed this ineffable delight.

"I was in love with her," he says; "yes, positively in love; for under an absolutely innocent and unconscious form I experienced

all the intoxication of love even so far as to be jealous. I was madly jealous of the com. posers who had her as their interpreter; and one fixed idea took possession of my mind, namely, that I might be in time to write an opera for her to sing."

It was no use for him to hurry, for unfortunately he was too late. Fortune, however, provided a solace for him. The premature death of the famous Malibran cheated his hopes; but twenty years later her sister opened the path to glory for the unknown beginner. Every one knows what Pauline Viardot's affectionate devotion did for Gounod, when she was at the zenith of her talent and her fame, and he remembers it with real pleasure. The actress is interesting enough to deserve this passing notice.

From that day forth the lad was overpowered by a feverish haste to have done with his classical studies in order to devote himself to music. In the following year his vocation was irrevocably fixed. He was not fourteen years old when the performance of Don Giovanni at the Théâtre Italien acted as the spark that electrified his artist's temperament. Every one knows Rossini's saying about Mozart. Some thoughtless inquirer asked him who in his opinion was the greatest musician. Beethoven," was the immediate reply. of Mozart, then ?" Oh, Mozart is not the greatest, he is the only musician in the world." Quite unconsciously, young Gounod expressed the same thought in a different shape when, after this memorable performance (January, 1832), in the midst of his enthusiastic outburst, his mother,

46

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"What

who was herself a musician of rare ability, asked him if he was really fond of this kind of music. "Oh, mother," he replied, "this is not a kind of music, it is Music." Henceforth the child's vocation was not to be gainsaid; it was irresistible, a torrent let loose that could never flow back to its source. "If they had tried to stop me from studying music," he said once when recalling these recollections of long ago, "I should have fled far away to America and have hidden myself in some secret spot where I could have worked after my own fancy."

IV.

I have already mentioned the lively criticism to which the institution of the Academy of France at Rome has been subjected by very distinguished personages, notably-to quote only musicians, for their opinions are the only ones that concern me here-by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, and Georges Bizet. No doubt it is a question of temperament, and possibly these critics are right from their standpoint. Others differ from them, and Gounod has shown his deep interest in the matter by writing the following lines in favor of the Villa Medici :

"The objection is taken that numbers of eminent artists have not been students at Rome. This is perfectly true, and allow me necessity make one come back superior to the to add that a journey to Rome does not of rest of the world. But what is the right inference to draw? That Rome does not perform the miracle of giving what nature has withheld? Obviously it does not; it would really be rather too convenient if we could obtain genius at the cost of a journey which is within everybody's reach. But this is not the point at all. The point is-given an artistic table and incalculable influence upon this nature-Does not Rome exercise an indispunature by producing nobility of thought and artistic growth? Is it to be said that the artist is wholly wrapped up in the technique of his art? Surely mechanical work is not everything in Art. Surely it is possible to find a skilful manipulator who is a commonplace artist, a consummate rhetorician whose lips are at the same time untouched by the fire from the altar. Is eloquence to be put on the same level as cleverness? Is there to be no difference between a man and a machine? We forget that the artist exists underneath the artisan, and that the artist must be touched, enlightened, enraptured, and transfigured until he comes to love passionately that incorruptible beauty which wins, not a momentary success, but an everlasting empire in the shape of those masterpieces that have been the torches to light and guide man in Art from

ancient times to the Renaissance, and on to our own century, and will continue so to guide him forever and ever. Can we ignore, or pretend to ignore, the unchangeable laws of nutrition and assimilation which govern the growth and perfecting of every organism? Nay, if a musician requires nothing but music, I shall not stop merely to ask why he is to be sent to Rome, where he has nothing to do but gaze at the frescoes of Raphael and Michael Angelo in the Vatican, on the hill that is the temple of all the oracles; I shall want also to know what is the use of his reading Homer and Virgil, Tacitus and Juvenal, Dante and Shakespeare, Molière and La Fontaine, Pascal and Bossuet-in a word, all the great masters of human thought. What is the good of them all? They are not music. True, they are not; but they are Art, ancient and modern,

immortal and universal, and it is on this Art that the artist-not the artisan-must nurture himself; from it he must get his health, strength, and life. How, too, can we express the inestimable value of that retreat, that quiet nook far from the fever and bustle and constant preoccupations of daily life?-how speak of its silence, wherein we learn to listen to the heart-beats of our soul? Think of the deep loneliness, the vast expanse of the horizon whose magnificent lines seem still to exercise the magic power of lifting our thoughts up to the level of the great events which they have witnessed! Think of the Tiber-solemn stream which, over all the horror of the crimes that it has engulfed, images the peaceful look of the Campagna over whose bosom it glides along! And then Rome herself Rome the triple-crowned-whose brow has received from the hand of the ages the august diadem of the Supreme Pontiff, whence the unfading light of Everlasting Truth sparkles and shines over the whole world. What a height, what a har mony, what a surrounding for those who know how to look within themselves! . . . Let us, then, at any cost, in spite of and against all opposition, keep up this wondrous School of Rome, on whose records are to be found the names of David, Ingres, Flandrin, Regnault, Duret, Hérold, Halévy, Berlioz, Bizet-who, I take it, are not names that justify the contemptuous pity which is applied to upset a dynasty now more than a century old. With

all our might, let us defend this sacred retreat which shelters the artist while he is developing his powers far away from the premature worries of daily wants, and which arms him as well against the seductions of money-mak ing as against the cheap and worthless triumphs of an ignoble popularity that will vanish with the morrow."

Faithful to his youthful love, Gounod still talks with enthusiasm of his three years of student life spent at the Villa Medici half a century ago. ROME! capital letters and a whole page of notes of exclamation would not suffice to express to the eye the full ring of his voice when he utters the name. Rome!-Pales

trina, and the San Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment, and the Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament, the Roman Campagna with its large melancholy horizon, the aqueducts of Claudius, and the blue Sabine hillsRome, that introduces us to beauty in all its forms, to poetry, to love, and to light! "To see is to enjoy," says Gounod; our life after death will be simply the power of seeing everything. Rome gives us a foretaste of this." The Eternal City in 1840 was not the same as it is in 1889. Then she was Pontifical Rome, the metropolis of Christendom, covered with churches and convents that towered above

the ruins of paganism, a city where the majestic processions of Holy Week trampled under foot the tombs of Pagan gods, covered as they were by the dust of ages and the ashes of martyrs; a city noble above all others, in which a dead civilization cast its splendid shadow upon the waning magnificence of a Power shorn of its ancient brilliance-the Urbs, the city of the Cæsars and the Popes, with far more poetry and majesty than the ordinary capital of a constitutional state, such as the caprice of modern politics has made it.. What an enchanted spot, what a magical abode for the soul of a gentle and enthusiastic artist like the young musician who reached it with his heart overflowing with love, his head full of dreams, his imagination haunted by those delightful, those vague visions of the ideal which are revealed to budding genius!

V.

There are three dominating notes in Gounod's character as seen in an hour's conversation with him he is all love, calmness, and youthfulness. "Love," he exclaimed one day, in one of those fits of self-abandonment in which he indulges very readily among sympathetic companions, "I am absolutely full of it, and that is why I have crammed such handsful of it into my operas. His sterner critics do indeed blame him for having" crammed" so much even into his oratorios. They are quite right to notice it; but they are wrong when they take him to task for it. It is all to be found in the gospels; the author of Faust and of Roméo has preferred to see the love and the poetry in them, and his ecstasies are rather emotional than mystical. The task he set himself in the Rédemption was not to cre