nremitting labor proved an
excellent foundation for this little period of relaxation. Also, as his
tour continued, he was kept in a constant state of surprise at the
number of celebrated musicians who came from flattering distances to
hear his concerts and shake his hand. Grieg and Brahms were the vanguard
of a distinguished throng: men representing every school, and of every
type of ability; from the veteran Carl Goldmark, idol of his following,
to a very young man, by name Richard Strauss, concerning whose immature
but highly individual compositions, Herr Brahms had already worked
himself into many a classical fury in the pages of his favorite musical
journal; though more than one great artist--among them Ivan,--believed
that wondrous messages were to come from the pen of this youth who
already dallied, in such magnificent unconcern, with certain
awe-inspiring transgressions of classical laws, augmented and diminished
to a breathless degree!

It was nearing March, and the German tour was verging on its close, when
Kashkine came from Petersburg, at Ivan's earnest request, to make one of
the party invited, by Frau Cosima, to spend a week at the home of Wagner
in Bayreuth. It was with a little reluctance that Gregoriev entered this
sanctum of the great magician's world. None who knew intimately Ivan's
work and that of the creator of the music-drama, could easily comprehend
the lack of sympathy between these two men whose music was of so much
the same type. Perhaps the similarity rose from very different sources.
Certainly the effects produced, however much alike in power and in
distinction, had originated in minds bearing so little resemblance to
each other, that neither could see himself reflected in his
contemporary. Indeed, as Wagner adored, and yearned to imitate,
Beethoven, his diametrical opposite, so Ivan, tempestuous iconoclast,
pored, year after year, over Mozart, deeply deploring his inability to
imitate the simple, wearisome, weakly-flowing syrup of obviousness,
which constitutes the secret of that master's popularity. So the two
great men, each of whom must be reverenced by all the members of the
other's following, found in each other, through the insistence of human
nature, ficklest of contrary jades, none of the greatness but all of the
faults.

Happily, however, there proved to be no reason for Ivan's hesitancy over
the invitation of Wagner's remarkable wife. His visit, of which many
hours were spent in