ious formulas of Rossini. Oh! the superb bursts
of sound, the feudal pomp, the martial mysticism, the quivering of
fantastic legends, the cry of passion ringing out through history! And
such finds!--each instrument endowed with a personality, the dramatic
_recitatives_ accompanied symphoniously by the orchestra--the typical
musical phrase on which an entire work is built! Ah! he was a great
fellow--a very great fellow indeed!'

'I am going to shut up, sir,' said the waiter, drawing near.

And, seeing that Gagniere did not as much as look round, he went to
awaken the petty retired tradesman, who was still dozing in front of his
saucer.

'I am going to shut up, sir.'

The belated customer rose up, shivering, fumbled in the dark corner
where he was seated for his walking-stick, and when the waiter had
picked it up for him from under the seats he went away.

And Gagniere rambled on:

'Berlioz has mingled literature with his work. He is the musical
illustrator of Shakespeare, Virgil, and Goethe. But what a painter!--the
Delacroix of music, who makes sound blaze forth amidst effulgent
contrasts of colour. And withal he has romanticism in his brain, a
religious mysticism that carries him away, an ecstasy that soars higher
than mountain summits. A bad builder of operas, but marvellous in
detached pieces, asking too much at times of the orchestra which he
tortures, having pushed the personality of instruments to its furthest
limits; for each instrument represents a character to him. Ah! that
remark of his about clarionets: "They typify beloved women." Ah! it has
always made a shiver run down my back. And Chopin, so dandified in
his Byronism; the dreamy poet of those who suffer from neurosis! And
Mendelssohn, that faultless chiseller! a Shakespeare in dancing pumps,
whose "songs without words" are gems for women of intellect! And after
that--after that--a man should go down on his knees.'

There was now only one gas-lamp alight just above his head, and the
waiter standing behind him stood waiting amid the gloomy, chilly void of
the room. Gagniere's voice had come to a reverential _tremolo_. He was
reaching devotional fervour as he approached the inner tabernacle, the
holy of holies.

'Oh! Schumann, typical of despair, the voluptuousness of despair! Yes,
the end of everything, the last song of saddened purity hovering above
the ruins of the world! Oh! Wagner, the god in whom centuries of music
are incarnated! His work is