people in the _salon_ were listening to his
monologue, and that groups of listeners had approached the door--"I
know well that these are heresies which one cannot utter in certain
circles without being stoned a little. Nor would I care to discuss the
question with a musician, for he would scarcely understand what I
really mean. The effect of this art 'of thinking in tones' is gradually
to dissolve all that is solid in the brain into a softened mass, and
only the great, truly creative talents can preserve the capacity and
disposition for other intellectual interests. That the highest masters
of every art stand on an equality with one another, I need not say. As
to the others, the expression which some one used in regard to lyric
poets maybe justly used toward them--'They are like geese whose livers
have been fattened; excellent livers, but sick geese.' How can the
balance of the intellectual powers be preserved, when any one sits nine
hours a day at an instrument and continually practises the same
exercises? And for that reason I should be careful how I tried to
convince a musician of the error of his fanaticism. But to you, who are
an aesthetic by profession--"

He chanced to let his eyes wander toward the door, and broke off
suddenly. He noticed now, for the first time, before what an audience
he had been speaking. The professor observed his surprise, and grinned
maliciously.

"You are talking to your own destruction, my dear sir," he said,
raising his voice. "You might just as well declare in a mosque that
Allah was not Allah, and Mohammed was not his prophet, as to assert to
this crowd of enthusiastic youths that there is anything more divine
than music, or that devotion to it, its service and its cultivation,
could ever be pushed too far. Entrench yourself behind your blocks of
marble, so that we may grant you peace on favorable terms. What would
you say if some one declared that whoever uses his mallet nine hours of
the day must, in the course of time, lose his sense of hearing and
sight, that his intellectual power would finally become deadened and
petrified, and that his soul would get to be as dusty and muddy as the
blouse he wears when he hammers his stones?"

A unanimous shout of bravos arose from the group standing nearest him,
and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the _salon_.

The countess, who now for the first time became aware of the dialogue,
was seen hastily approaching, with the intention of av