ave dared to take
liberties with it."

I remembered him very well. I remembered going into the shop one day and
he was alone, busy writing at a table in the corner. He said he was
composing a polka. He had ruled his own staves because, like Schubert,
he could not afford to buy music paper; he wanted all the money he could
save to pay a publisher to publish his polka--just as we do in
England--and if it succeeded his fortune would be made. I felt a sinking
at the heart, as though he was telling me he had been gazing on the
mirage of the lottery until he had dreamt a number. He had filled about
two pages and a half with polka stuff, but had not yet composed the
conclusion.

"You see, what I must do is to make it arrive there where the bars end"
(he had drawn his bar lines by anticipation); "that will not be
difficult; it is the beginning that is difficult--the tema. It does not
much matter now what I write for the coda in those empty bars, but I must
fill them all with something."

I said, "Yes. That, of course--well, of course, that is the proper
spirit in which to compose a polka."

As I had shown myself so intelligent, he often talked to me about his
music and his studies; he had an Italian translation of Cherubini's
_Treatise_, and had nearly finished all the exercises down to the end of
florid counterpoint in four parts. His professor was much pleased with
him, and had congratulated him upon possessing a mind full of resource
and originality--just the sort of mind that is required for composing
music of the highest class. He explained to me that counterpoint is a
microcosm. In life we have destiny from which there is no escape; in
counterpoint we have the canto fermo of which not a note may be altered.
Destiny, like the canto fermo, is dictated for us by One who is more
learned and more skilful than we; it is for us to accept what is given,
and to compose a counterpoint, many counterpoints, that shall flow over
and under and through, without breaking any of the rules, until we reach
the full close, which is the inevitable end of both counterpoint and
life.

I called him Bellini because he told me that the composer of _Norma_ had
attained to a proficiency in counterpoint which was miraculous, and that
he was the greatest musician the world had ever known. This high praise
was given to Bellini partly, of course, because he was a native of
Catania. London is a long way from Catania, and in England perh