t form
of suffering, was just now very full of her friendship with the
beautiful Princess; and she poured into Ivan's half-listening ears all
that she knew of this exquisite woman, married at seventeen, left alone
in her cold and unapproachable state, to learn all the dire details of a
state marriage: and now mother of a son who, in very boyhood, was
already believed to be gazing with interest down the path his father had
trod. Even Nathalie herself could not guess the anguish with which this
secret dread had already filled the mother's heart; nor the struggle
she was prepared to make before her motherhood should be dishonored as
her wifehood had always been.

In time the story of this Princess, told, day by day, in semi-accidental
snatches, laid hold of Ivan's imagination. By degrees he began to enter
into the life that was being laid bare before him with all the intimate
understanding that is part of the Creator's gift. For many weeks after
the departure of his cousin, indeed, Ivan mused upon the subject of the
royal lady, dowered, apparently, with every enviable possession of
wealth and power, and yet one of the most truly unfortunate of
humankind. The immediate result of this was the writing of the "Three
Studies," unnamed, so long left in manuscript, and so persistently
misunderstood. It is only, indeed, within the last five years that they
have been discovered to bear a direct relationship to the last three
movements of his greatest symphony. To-day they form the treasure of
that small but expanding cult who have been so mocked at for their
serious study of the connection between various harmonies and the mental
emotions, from which has grown the dream of establishing a perfect
musical law.

It was the spring of 1889 before Ivan at last began to work seriously
upon his "Sixth Symphony": that which had been growing in his mind for
more than ten years; and which, while it forms, perhaps, his greatest
claim to immortality, was the first to open the eyes of Philistia to the
splendors of his powers. Like all of those few artistic masterpieces
that approach perfection, the "Tosca Symphony" is popular alike with the
many and with the few; because it contains something of the essence of
all humanity: strikes a chord that must find some echo in the breast of
every man and woman that has known the meaning of pain. But, superb as
was the height attained in this work, Ivan paid dearly for its
accomplishment. For, from the n