d it, not as a special form of
thought, but as a sort of dress for literary ideas. Our musical
education is superficial: it may be got for a few years, in a formal
way, at a Conservatoire, but it is not within reach of all; the child
does not breathe music as, in a way, he breathes the atmosphere of
literature and oratory; and although nearly everyone in France has an
instinctive feeling for beautiful writing, only a very few people care
for beautiful music. From this arise the common faults and failings in
our music. It has remained a luxurious art; it has not become, like
German music, the poetical expression of the people's thought.

To bring this about we should need a combination of conditions that are
very rare in France; though such conditions went to the making of
Camille Saint-Saens. He had not only remarkable natural talent, but came
of a family of ardent musicians, who devoted themselves to his
education. At five years of age he was nourished on the orchestral score
of _Don Juan_;[114] as a little boy

"De dix ans, delicat, frele, le teint jaunet,
Mais confiant, naif, plein d'ardeur et de joie,"[115]

he "measured himself against Beethoven and Mozart" by playing in a
public concert; at sixteen years of age he wrote his _Premiere
Symphonie_. As he grew older he soaked himself in the music of Bach and
Haendel, and was able to compose at will after the manner of Rossini,
Verdi, Schumann, and Wagner.[116] He has written excellent music in all
styles--the Grecian style, and that of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries. His compositions are of every kind: masses, grand
operas, light operas, cantatas, symphonies, symphonic poems; music for
the orchestra, the organ, the piano, the voice, and chamber music. He is
the learned editor of Gluck and Rameau; and is thus not only an artist,
but an artist who can talk about his art. He is an unusual figure in
France--one would have thought rather to find his home in Germany.

[Footnote 114: C. Saint-Saens, _Charles Gounod et le Don Juan de
Mozart_, 1894.]

[Footnote 115:

But ten years old, slightly built and pale,
Yet full of simple confidence and joy (_Rimes familieres_).

]

[Footnote 116: Charles Gounod, _Memoires d'un Artiste_, 1896.]

In Germany, however, they make no mistake about him. There, the name of
Camille Saint-Saens stands for the French classical spirit, and is
thought worthiest to represent us in music from the time