Later

This effort was much praised by anatomists, but McKenzie was anxious to know what artists thought about it; and as it was accepted for exhibition in 1902 by the Society of American Artists and by the Copley Society of Boston, he scored a favorable verdict. he finished, on the same plan, "The Athlete," a gracefully posed standing figure, corresponding to the average of the fifty strongest men in Harvard that year. Observations of four hundred men were taken by Dr. Dudley A. Sargent to furnish the mathematics out of which "The Athlete was formed. What constitutes a State?" asks the poet; and then he goes on to answer his own question by saying that it is not navies or kings or anything of that sort, but real men. "The Athlete " is intended to represent the best that America can do in furnishing the essential demanded by the poet. And Europe affirms that America has every reason to be proud of her output, for Dr. McKenzie did not rest content with the praise he had received in the New World, but daringly challenged the opinion of the Old.

Last year he boxed up "The Sprinter" and sent it to the Committee of the Royal Academy in England. There was nothing to show that the sender was a doctor or anything else but simply an unknown artist who sent his work in the usual way for the annual exhibition. "The Sprinter" was given a prominent place in the sculpture rotunda of Burlington House, the palace on Piccadilly

where the Royal Academy holds its exhibition.

At the same time he invited criticism from a body known to be much more severe than even the authorities of the Royal Academy. He forwarded "The Athlete to the judges for the Salon in France. It was accepted and exhibited. This year he had one statue in the Royal Academy and three in the Paris Salon.

Such a thing has probably never happened in this world before. That a man who has received no artistic training should produce work which not once but on four occasions has received the seal of commendation from the artistic experts of two European countries seems incredible to people over here. I have quit telling French artists about it, because they so evidently don't believe me, and, being too polite to say so, I feel that I am taking an unfair advantage of them. It is such a conso

lation to tell a man he lies if you are sure he is not telling the truth, and you cannot persuade a Frenchman that any untrained artistic amateur from the west ever got into the Salon except by paying his franc and going in with the general public.

When I was searching the Rue Fulguerie for his studio, I asked an artist who was coming out of the courtyard if he knew where Dr. Tait McKenzie was to be found. He said:

"There is no doctor of that name in this neighborhood, but there is a young sculptor named McKenzie at No. 9."

T

HE Rue St. Jacques, which runs from the Rue Soufflot, near the Pantheon, through to the Boulevard du Port Royal, and is thus on the outskirts of the Latin Quarter, in old Paris, is a narrow, winding street, hardly more than a lane to the eye of an American, full of pâtisseries and crèmeries, and resounding with the cries of street venders and the rattle of hand-carts. On a May morning of bright sunlight, in 1901, when it was alive with the vivid costumes and the animated conversation of the shopkeepers and loiterers, I walked along this street in search of the Schola Cantorum-the school of music founded in 1896 by MM. Vincent d'Indy, Charles Bordes, and Alexandre Guilmant. At last I found the high wall, with its cresset lamp and overarching tree, which form the quietly academic exterior of the Schola Cantorum, curiously set in the midst of this bustling life of shops.

After some questioning and waiting inside, I at last found myself in a small bare room, furnished only with wooden chairs and an upright piano, and at the moment filled with young French music students. From this group advanced a gentleman of middle age, erect and graceful in bearing, and of a strikingly noble and simple courtesy of demeanor. His eyes were noticeably bright and keen, deep-set under strongly marked brows; the black mustache and imperial, the silk hat of uncompromising cut which he carried in his hand, and the narrow red ribbon of the Legion of

Honor in his butttonhole, marked him a Frenchman; but his frank directness and kindly though reserved cordiality were cosmopolitan, and established at once a good understanding. This was M. Vincent d'Indy, the champion of the César Franck traditions in French music, and to-day one of the foremost of French musicians.

It was a week later that I went to M. d'Indy's house for a lesson. M. d'Indy is a man of aristocratic birth and of wealth, and his house is a large and handsome one of stone in the Avenue de Villarsquite a different sort of place from the Rue St. Jacques. The composer's study, into which I was shown, was a pleasant room, simply but agreeably furnished, with a bust of César Franck on one side. many books, a wide writing-table, and an upright piano. It was an appropriate but unobtrusive setting for a personality of rare charm, grace, and distinction. As soon as M. d'Indy entered one forgot, not only the room and the house, but the aristocrat and the man of wealth, to remember only the artist and the man of an enthusiasm almost as much ethical and philosophical as it was æsthetic.

thoven that showed how the thing should be done, instead of confining himself to negative criticism. He spoke at length and with enthusiasm of the "grand variation as a means of musical construction-that is, the development of an idea by a gradual and extended evolution of a musical germ, not literal, but following the suggestion of the general harmonic and rhythmic character. In connection with this point, on which he laid such stress that I could not but think of it as amounting to a hobby with him, he wrote out the following list of works to be studied:

Chorals pour orgue. J. S. Bach. Quatuors (du XIIe au XVIe). Beethoven. Quintette, Sonate pour violine. César Franck.

2me Quatuor. G. Fauré.

Trio pour piano, clarinette, et violoncelle. V. d'Indy.

tion whether he thought the technique of composition, if for any reason it had been neglected in youth, could be acquired late in life. To this he answered an affirmative that was as emphatic as it was to me unexpected. "If a man seriously loves composition so well that he is willing to impose the necessary drudgery on himself," was the spirit of his answer, "he may master the technique at any period of his life."

The other remark was apropos of the question, so much mooted, whether any fixed principles underlie the ceaseless changes of artistic style. With a smile radiant with conviction, he asserted the fixity of the fundamental laws of art. There may be many surface changes, he admitted, but "les principes d'art " this with a vibrancy of voice that I can still hear " sont éternelles-ils restent." There was a world of eloquence in that simple "ils restent "_" they endure." The deepest convictions of the artist were speaking there.