ast was too much. Why, Browning's poem was contained in my
tone-poem; blame Browning for the incoherence, for I but followed his
verse. One day many months afterward I happened to pick up Hanslick, and
chanced on the following:

"Let them play the theme of a symphony by Mozart or Haydn, an adagio by
Beethoven, a scherzo by Mendelssohn, one of Schumann's or Chopin's
compositions for the piano, or again, the most popular themes from the
overtures of Auber, Donizetti or Flotow, who would be bold enough to
point out a definite feeling on the subject of any of these themes? One
will say 'love.' Perhaps so. Another thinks it is longing. He may be
right. A third feels it to be religion. Who may contradict him? Now, how
can we talk of a definite feeling represented when nobody really knows
what is represented? Probably all will agree about the beauty or
beauties of the composition, whereas all will differ regarding its
subject. To represent something is to exhibit it clearly, to set it
before us distinctly. But how can we call that the subject represented
by an art which is really its vaguest and most indefinite element, and
which must, therefore, forever remain highly debatable ground."

I saw instantly that I had been on a false track. Charles Lamb and
Eduard Hanslick had both reached the same conclusion by diverse roads. I
was disgusted with myself. So then the whispering of love and the clamor
of ardent combatants were only whispering, storming, roaring, but not
the whispering of love and the clamor; musical clamor, certainly, but
not that of "ardent combatants."

I saw then that my symphonic poem, _Childe Roland_, told nothing to
anyone of Browning's poem, that my own subjective and overstocked
imaginings were not worth a rush, that the music had an objective
existence as music and not as a poetical picture, and by the former and
not the latter it must be judged. Then I discovered what poor stuff I
had produced--how my fancy had tricked me into believing that those
three or four bold and heavily orchestrated themes, with their restless
migration into different tonalities, were "soul and tales marvelously
mirrored."

In reality my ignorance and lack of contrapuntal knowledge, and, above
all, the want of clear ideas of form, made me label the work a symphonic
poem--an elastic, high-sounding, pompous and empty title. In a spirit of
revenge I took the score, rearranged it for small orchestra, and it is
being played at the