148 Mr. George Henschel [June 2, 



the beauties of nature reveal themselves as convincingly in a little 

 primrose as in the huge trees of the Yosemite Yallev, in the sweet 

 prattling of a little brooklet as in the roaring thunder of the 

 Niagara, in the lovely undulations of the Kentish hills as in the 

 awe-inspiring heights of the Himalayas, so beauty of soul, honesty of 

 purpose, purity of mind, can shine as brightly in the shortest song as 

 in the longest symphony. 



No really true artist then, in the realm of music, will debase his 

 muse by wedding it to any but true poetry, by putting music to 

 words as far removed from poetry as a molehill from Mount Parnassus. 



It seems, however, no easy thing, especially for younger people, 

 to distinguish the real from the sham, sentiment from sentimentality. 

 If the latter be superficial, aimless pity, affected, unwholesome, false 

 emotion, sentiment, on the other hand, is true emotion, is the 

 genuine feeling that grows out of the contemplation of a thing ; and 

 it is that sentiment, which is a fit object for poetic and musical 

 expression, which we ought to look for even in a little song. A true 

 artist's spirit will not allow itself to be moved by versified penny-a- 

 liner newspaper reports, like the capsizing of a little pleasure boat 

 with two lovers in it ; or the death of a poor, emaciated seamstress, 

 ready to join her lover in heaven. A true artist's choice will be the 

 poetic embodiment of sentiment. 



The standing of the pale, hungry little boy outside the window of 

 a confectioner's shop, and observing inside the shop the rich, ruddy 

 little boy eating his fill, that is not poetry, even if put into faultless 

 verse and rhyme, but simply a fact, and a sad one, too, the con- 

 templation of which might in a fine poetic mind produce the most 

 beautiful sentiments of compassion with the sufferings of our fellow 

 creatures, of tenderness, of love ; but to let the poor little chap go 

 straightway to heaven, to, the fortissimo accompaniment of triplets on 

 the last page of an up-to-date ballad, that is sentimentality and 

 cruel mockery into the bargain. 



I well remember what fun Brahms and I had in later years, when 

 I showed him some specimens of the typical popular modern English 

 ballad, and how we laughed — especially over the sad ones ! 



But to return to the rest of the diary. 



After supper, we sat, quite alone in the dark, on the terrace of 

 the Fahrnberg. Soon our conversation took a more serious turn. 

 He spoke of friendship, and of men, and how, properly speaking, he 

 believed very little in either. 



" How few true men there are in the world ! " he exclaimed. 

 " The two Schumanus, Robert and Clara— there you have two true, 

 l)eautiful Menschenbilder (images of man). Knowledge, achievement, 

 power, position — nothing can outweigh this : to be a beautiful 

 Menschenbild. Do you know Allgeyer, in Munich ? He is one, too." 

 And then he began to talk with touching warmth of the time when, 

 in AUgeyer's house at Karlsruhe, he wrote his " Mainacht," and the 



