okes put in with a
soft and delicate touch. This art is more allied to that of Moussorgski
(though without any of his roughness) than that of Wagner, in spite of
one or two reminiscences of _Parsifal_, which are only extraneous traits
in the work. In _Pelleas et Melisande_ one finds no persistent
_leitmotifs_ running through the work, or themes which pretend to
translate into music the life of characters and types; but, instead, we
have phrases that express changing feelings, that change with the
feelings. More than that, Debussy's harmony is not, as it was with
Wagner and all the German school, a fettered harmony, tightly bound to
the despotic laws of counterpoint; it is, as Laloy[202] has said, a
harmony that is first of all harmonious, and has its origin and end in
itself.

[Footnote 202: No other critic has, I think, discerned so shrewdly
Debussy's art and genius. Some of his analyses are models of clever
intuition. The thought of the critic seems to be one with that of the
musician.]

As Debussy's art only attempts to give the impression of the moment,
without troubling itself with what may come after, it is free from care,
and takes its fill in the enjoyment of the moment. In the garden of
harmonies it selects the most beautiful flowers; for sincerity of
expression takes a second place with it, and its first idea is to
please. In this again it interprets the aesthetic sensualism of the
French race, which seeks pleasure in art, and does not willingly admit
ugliness, even when it seems to be justified by the needs of the drama
and of truth. Mozart shared the same thought: "Music," he said, "even in
the most terrible situations, ought never to offend the ear; it should
charm it even there; and, in short, always remain music."

As for Debussy's harmonic language, his originality does not consist, as
some of his foolish admirers have said, in the invention of new chords,
but in the new use he makes of them. A man is not a great artist because
he makes use of unresolved sevenths and ninths, consecutive major thirds
and ninths, and harmonic progressions based on a scale of whole tones;
one is only an artist when one makes them say something. And it is not
on account of the peculiarities of Debussy's style--of which one may
find isolated examples in great composers before him, in Chopin, Liszt,
Chabrier, and Richard Strauss--but because with Debussy these
peculiarities are an expression of his personality, and because