he was among the first to stir up
interest in the musical education of France to-day. He has done more
for the advancement of our music than the entire official teaching of
the Conservatoires A day will come when, by the force of things and in
spite of all resistance, such a man will take the place that belongs to
him at the head of the organisation of music in France.

* * * * *

I have tried to unearth M. d'Indy's strongest characteristics, and I
think I have found them in his faith and in his activity, I am only too
aware of the pitfalls that have beset me in this attempt; it is always
difficult to criticise a man's personality, and it is most difficult
when he is alive and still in the midst of his development. Every man is
a mystery, not only to others, but to himself. There is something very
presumptuous about pretending to know anyone who does not quite know
himself. And yet one cannot live without forming opinions; it is a
necessity of life. The people we see and know (or say we know), our
friends, and those we love, are never what we think them. Often they are
not at all like the portrait we conjure up; for we walk among the
phantoms of our hearts. But still one must go on having opinions, and go
on constructing and creating things, if we do not want to become
impotent through inertia. Error is better than doubt, provided we err in
good faith; and the main thing is to speak out the thing that one really
feels and believes. I hope M. d'Indy will forgive me if I have gone far
wrong, and that he will see in these pages a sincere effort to
understand him and a keen sympathy with himself, and even with his
ideas, though I do not always share them. But I have always thought that
in life a man's opinions go for very little, and that the only thing
that matters is the man himself. Freedom of spirit is the greatest
happiness one can know; one must be sorry for those who have not got it.
And there is a secret pleasure in rendering homage to another's splendid
creed, even though it is one that we do not ourselves profess.

RICHARD STRAUSS

The composer of _Heldenleben_ is no longer unknown to Parisians. Every
year at Colonne's or Chevillard's we see his tall, thin silhouette
reappear in the conductor's desk. There he is with his abrupt and
imperious gestures, his wan and anxious face, his wonderfully clear
eyes, restless and penetrating at the same time, his mouth shaped like a
c