neighbour, neighbour, Turiddu is killed, Turiddu is killed!" At
this nearly every one in the little village came running, while
Santuzza fell upon the ground in a faint.

"He is killed! Alfio has killed him!" others cried, running in, and
then poor old Lucia fell unconscious beside Santuzza, while the
neighbours gathered about her, lifted her up and carried her into her
lonely inn.

MEYERBEER

Genius seems born to do stupid things and to be unable to know it.
Probably no stupider thing was ever said or done than that by Wagner
when he wrote a diatribe on the Jew in Art. He called it "Das
Judenthum in der Musik" (Judaism in Music). He declared that the
mightiest people in art and in several other things--the Jews--could
not be artists for the reason that they were wanderers and therefore
lacking in national characteristics.

There could not well have been a better plea against his own
statement. Art is often national--but not when art is at its best. Art
is an emotional result--and emotion is a thing the Jews know something
about. Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the most helpful friend Richard Wagner
ever had, yet Wagner was so little of a Jew that he did not know the
meaning of appreciation and gratitude. Instead, he hated Meyerbeer and
his music intensely. Meyerbeer may have been a wanderer upon the face
of the earth and without national characteristics--which is a truly
amusing thing to say of a Jew, since his "characteristics" are a good
deal stronger than "national": they are racial! But however that may
have been, Meyerbeer's music was certainly characteristic of its
composer. As between Jew and Jew, Mendelssohn and he had a petty
hatred of each other. Mendelssohn was always displeased when the
extraordinary likeness between himself and Meyerbeer was commented
upon. They were so much alike in physique that one night, after
Mendelssohn had been tormented by his attention being repeatedly
called to the fact, he cut his hair short in order to make as great a
difference as possible between his appearance and that of his rival.
This only served to create more amusement among his friends.

Rossini, with all the mean vanity of a small artist, one whose
principal claim to fame lay in large dreams, declared that Meyerbeer
was a "mere compiler." If that be true, one must say that a good
compilation is better than a poor creation. Rossini and Meyerbeer
were, nevertheless, warm friends.

Meyerbeer put into practice t