g. At three-and-thirty he had wrecked the career of a fashionable
soprano by inspiring her with the belief that she might become a great
singer, a great artist; at five-and-thirty Bayreuth and its world of
musical culture and ideas had interested him in spite of his
unconquerable aversion to long hair and dirty hands. After some
association with geniuses he withdrew from the art-world, confessing
himself unable to bear the society of those who did not dress for
dinner; but while repudiating, he continued to spy the art-world from a
distance. An audience is, however, necessary to a 'cello player, and the
Turf Club and the Royal Yacht Club contained not a dozen members, he
said, who would recognise the Heroica Symphony if they happened to hear
it, which was not likely. Lately he had declared openly that he was
afraid of entering any of his clubs, lest he should be asked once more
what he thought of the Spring Handicaps, and if he intended sailing the
_Medusa_ in the Solent this season. Nevertheless, his journey to
Bayreuth could not but produce an effect. He had purchased the
_Wagnerian Review_; it had led him to Mr. Innes's concerts, and he was
already interested in the prospect of reviving the early music and its
instruments. That this new movement should be begun in Dulwich, a suburb
he would never have heard of if it had not been for its picture gallery,
stimulated his curiosity.

It is the variation, not the ordinary specimen, that is most typical,
for the variation contains the rule in essence, and the deviation
elucidates the rule. So in his revolt against the habitual pleasures and
ideas of his class, Sir Owen became more explanatory of that class than
if he had acquiesced in the usual ignorance of L20,000 a year. To the
ordinary eye he was merely the conventional standard of the English
upper classes, but more intimate observation revealed the slight glaze
of Bohemianism which natural inclination and many adventures in that
land had left upon him. He listened without parade, his grey eyes
following the music--they, not the head, seeming to nod to it; and when
Mr. Innes approached to ask him his opinion, he sprang to his feet to
tell him.

One of the pieces they had heard was a pavane for five viols and a
harpsichord, composed by Ferrabosco, son of the Italian musician who had
settled in Greenwich at the end of the sixteenth century. Sir Owen was
extraordinarily pleased and interested, and declared the pavane to