music, which you
cast from you so carelessly. As for yourself, you are too much the
"virtuosic genius"; too much, at heart, the actor. Your music is perhaps
the most cunningly carpentered for effect, the most artificial known to
us. You are perhaps the most brilliant artifex of music.

We always seem to see you sitting on the concert-platform before us,
immersed in the expression of your passion, your disgust of passion,
your renunciation of passion. But the absorption is not quite as
complete as it would appear to be. During the entire performance, you
have been secretly keeping one wicked little eye trained on the ladies
of the audience.

Sometimes you play the religious. Perhaps there truly was in you a vein
of devotion and faith. The fact that you took Holy Orders to escape
marrying the Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein, who pursued you those many
years and doubtlessly bored you with her theological writings, does not
entirely disprove its existence. Indeed, your "Dante" symphony, with
its Hell full of impenitent sexual offenders, its Purgatory full of
those who repent them of their excesses, its Paradise represented by a
hymn to the Virgin, suggests what manner of role, and how real a one,
religion might have played in your luxurious existence. But, for the
most part, the religiosity of your music recalls overmuch the
fashionable confessor's. You bring consolation, doubtlessly. But you
bring it by choice into the boudoir. You speak sadly of the cruel winds
of lust. You dwell on the example of the pious St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
You spread your hands over fair penitents, making a series of the most
beautiful gestures. You whisper honeyed forgiveness for passional sins.
You always excite tears and gratitude. But, in the end, your
"Consolation" turns out only another "Liebestraum."

No doubt, you loved your native land. But your patriotism recalls
dangerously the restaurant Magyar, the fiddler in the frogged coat. You
draw from your violin passionate laments. In a sort of ecstasy you
celebrate Hungaria. Then, smiling brilliantly, you pass the hat.

Once, only, your eye did not wander liquidly to the gallery. Once, only,
your workmanship was not marred by schemes for titillating effects, for
sensational contrasts, for grandiose and bombastic expression. Once,
only, you were completely the artist, impregnating your work with a
fine glow of life, making it deeply dignified and impassioned, sincere
and firm, profoundly mo