iving its name to a
whole period of art, the "Judaic period." "The modern style is the last
phase of the Judaic school...." etc.]

[Footnote 148: In the _Cours de Composition musicale_ M. d'Indy speaks
of "the admirable initial T in the _Rouleau mortuaire_ of Saint-Vital
(twelfth century), which represents Satan vomiting two Jews ... an
expressive and symbolic work of art, if ever there was one." I should
not mention this but for the fact that there are only two illustrations
in the whole book.]

[Footnote 149: _Cours de Composition musicale_, p. 160.]

Haendel's oratorios are spoken of as "chilling, and, frankly speaking,
tedious."[150] Bach himself escapes with this qualification: "If he is
great, it is not because of, but in spite of the dogmatic and parching
spirit of the Reformation."[151]

I will not try to play the part of judge; for a man is sufficiently
judged by his own writings. And, after all, it is rather interesting to
meet people who are sincere and not afraid to speak their minds. I will
admit that I rather enjoy--a little perversely, perhaps--some of these
extreme opinions, where the writer's personality stands strongly
revealed.

[Footnote 150: _L'Oratorio moderne_ (_Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, March,
1899).]

[Footnote 151: _Ibid._ As much as to say he was a Catholic without
knowing it. And that is what a friend of the _Schola_, M. Edgar Tinel,
declares: "Bach is a truly Christian artist and, without doubt, _a
Protestant by mistake_, since in his immortal _Credo_ he confesses his
faith in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" (_Tribune de
Saint-Gervais_, August-September, 1902). M. Edgar Tinel was, as you
know, one of the principal masters of Belgian oratorio.]

So the old Gothic spirit still lives among us, and informs the mind of
one of our best-known artists, and also, without doubt, the minds of
hundreds of those who listen to him and admire him. M. Louis Laloy has
shown the persistence of certain forms of plain-song in M. Debussy's
_Pelleas_; and in a dim sense of far-away kinship he finds the cause of
the mysterious charm that such music holds for some of us.[152] This
learned paradox is possible. Why not? The mixtures of race and the
vicissitudes of history have given us so full and complex a soul that we
may very well find its beginnings there, if it pleases us--or the
beginnings of quite other things. Of beginnings there is no end; the
choice is quite embarrassing, and I imagine o