America.

Mr. Gilman tells us:

"His grave is on an open hill-top, commanding one of the spacious and
beautiful views he had loved. On a bronze tablet are these lines of
his own, used as a motto for his 'From a Log Cabin,' the last music he
ever wrote:

'A house of dreams untold
It looks out over the whispering tree-tops
And faces the setting sun.'"

XXII

CLAUDE ACHILLE DEBUSSY

"_I love music too much to speak of it otherwise than
passionately_."
DEBUSSY

"_Art is always progressive; it cannot return to the past,
which is definitely dead. Only imbeciles and cowards look
backward. Then--Let us work_!"
DEBUSSY

It is difficult to learn anything of the boyhood and youth of this
rare French composer. Even his young manhood and later life were so
guarded and secluded that few outside his intimate circle knew much
of the man, except as mirrored in his music. After all that is just as
the composer wished, to be known through his compositions, for in
them he revealed himself. They are transparent reflections of his
character, his aims and ideals.

Only the barest facts of his early life can be told. We know that he
was born at Saint Germain-en-Laye, France, August 22, 1862. From the
very beginning he seemed precociously gifted in music, and began at a
very early age to study the piano. His first lessons on the instrument
were received from Mme. de Sivry, a former pupil of Chopin. At ten he
entered the Paris Conservatoire, obtaining his Solfege medals in 1874,
'75, and '76, under Lavignac; a second prize for piano playing
from Marmontel in 1877, a first prize for accompanying in 1880; an
accessory prize for counterpoint and fugue in 1882, and finally the
Grande Prix de Rome, with his cantata, "L'Enfant Prodigue," in 1884,
as a pupil of Guirand.

Thus in twelve years, or at the age of twenty-two, the young
musician was thoroughly furnished for a career. He had worked through
carefully, from the beginning to the top, with thoroughness and
completeness, gaining his honors, slowly, step by step. All this
painstaking care, this overcoming of the technical difficulties of his
art, is what gave him such complete command and freedom in using the
medium of tone and harmony, in his unique manner.

While at work in Paris, young Debussy made an occasional side trip to
another coun