of a great individuality speaking
a new language.

"Compare these men with composers of the order of Abt, Steibelt,
Thalberg, and Donizetti, and you will see at once what I mean about
originality being the basis of permanent art. For over twenty years my
great fondness for mineralogy and for gems led me to neglect in a
measure the development of the higher works of these composers, but I
have realized my error and have been working enormously for years to
attain the technic which their works demand. Some years ago I felt that
technical development must cease at a certain age. This is all idiocy. I
feel that I have now many times the technic I have ever had before and I
have acquired it all in recent years.

SELF-HELP THE SECRET OF MANY SUCCESSES

"No one could possibly believe more in self-help than I. The student who
goes to a teacher and imagines that the teacher will cast some magic
spell about him which will make him a musician without working, has an
unpleasant surprise in store for him. When I was eighteen I went to
Dachs at the Vienna Conservatory. He bade me play something. I played
the _Rigoletto_ paraphrase of Liszt. Dachs commented favorably upon my
touch but assured me that I was very much upon the wrong track and that
I should study the _Woltemperirtes Klavier_ of Bach. He assured me that
no musical education could be considered complete without an intimate
acquaintance with the Bach fugues, which of course was most excellent
advice.

"Consequently I secured a copy of the fugues and commenced work upon
them. Dachs had told me to prepare the first prelude and fugue for the
following lesson. But Dachs was not acquainted with my methods of study.
He did not know that I had mastered the art of concentration so that I
could obliterate every suggestion of any other thought from my mind
except that upon which I was working. He had no estimate of my youthful
zeal and intensity. He did not know that I could not be satisfied unless
I spent the entire day working with all my artistic might and main.

"Soon I saw the wonderful design of the great master of Eisenach. The
architecture of the fugues became plainer and plainer. Each subject
became a friend and each answer likewise. It was a great joy to observe
with what marvelous craftsmanship he had built up the wonderful
structures. I could not stop when I had memorized the first fugue, so I
went to the next and the next and the next.

A SURPRISED TEACHER