soul away from its
sorrows or drowns it in tears, and all without offering a semblance of
a practical solution; which orchestrates a greater fury, a more
poignant jealousy, a sweeter note of bird, a harsher clang of weapons,
than any human energy can even imagine to exist; this art with which
marching soldiers sing away their fatigue, but not really; with which
disconsolate lovers wing their hopes, but not really; with which the
pious pipe themselves to heaven, but not really; with which, by
strings and beaten skins, organ-pipes and blowing brass, an
anaesthesia of ecstasy is produced, leaving one only the weaker
against the dourness and doggedness of the devil; with which men and
women hymn themselves home to God, only to lose Him when they leave
the threshold of His house; which choruses from a thousand throats
patriotism, defiance, self-confidence, but arms none of them with any
useful weapon; which with drums and brass can send any lout to heroism
without his knowing why; this art which burns up the manhood of its
devotees -- who ever heard of a great tenor who was a great man, or
even of a great musician for more than half of whose life one must
needs not apologize? -- this art flourishes in Germany not without
reason, and not for nothing.

In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children
could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in
Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the
part-song known to every college man in America, "On a Bank Two Roses
Grew," as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or
have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great
clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will
not deny the delights of music in Germany. In Berlin there is not a
hall suitable for a musical recital that is not engaged a year,
sometimes more, in advance.

In the beautiful Golden Hall of the castle of the Grand Duke of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin, at Schwerin, I have attended a concert given by
the Grand Duke's own orchestra, where the selections were all
compositions of former leaders or members of the orchestra, dating
back over a period of two hundred years. For centuries in this
particular grand duchy music and the theatre, supported and guided by
the sovereign, have offered a school of entertainment and instruction
to the people. At this present writing, special trains are run to
Schwerin from the surround