demi-monde are rather ugly than beautiful.  In regard to Laura, there is another reason for her non-success with the Parisians.  Her intelligence, though very uncommon, is upon too straight lines, wanting in that kind of dash so appreciated here.  There are thinkers, and deep thinkers, too, in Paris, but in society those mostly win a reputation whose minds are nimble enough to cling to any subject, as a monkey to a branch by his tail or feet, turning head over heel.  The more these jumps are sudden and unexpected, the surer the success.  Laura understands this, and at the same time is conscious that to do this would be as easy for her as to dance on a rope.  She considers me an adept in these kinds of gymnastics, and consequently wants me.

To increase the attraction of her salon, she has made it into a temple of music.  She herself sings like a siren, and thereby attracts many people.  I meet there often a pianiste, Clara Hilst, a young, good-looking German girl, very tall of figure, whom one of the painters here describes thus:  “C’est beau, mais c’est deux fois grandeur naturelle.”  In spite of her German origin, she has met with a considerable success.  As to myself, I evidently belong to the old school, for I do not understand the music of the present, which consists in a great deal of noise and confusion.  Listening the last time to Miss Hilst’s playing at Laura’s, I thought to myself that if the piano were a man who had seduced her sister, she could not belabor him more mercilessly.  She also plays on the harmonium.  Her compositions are thought of a great deal here, and considered very deep; most likely because those who could not understand them, hearing them for the tenth time, hope the eleventh time will make them more intelligible.  I must confess that these remarks sound malicious, perhaps bold in one who does not profess to be a judge.  Yet it seems to me that music for the understanding of which one has to be a professor of the Conservatorium, and for which people intellectually developed, let alone simple folk, do not possess the key, is not what it ought to be.  I am afraid that musicians following the same track will end by creating a separate caste, like the Egyptian priests, in order to keep knowledge and art exclusively to themselves.

I say this because I notice that since Wagner’s time, music, compared, for instance, to painting, has taken a quite different direction.  The newer school of painting is narrowing spontaneously the limit of its proportions, tries to divest itself from philosophical and literary ideas; does not attempt speeches, sermons, historical events that require a commentary, or allegory that does not explain itself at a glance; in fact confines itself with the full consciousness of doing so to the reproduction of shape and color.  Music since Wagner’s time goes in the opposite direction,—­tries to be, not only a harmony of sound, but at the same time the philosophy of harmony.  I sometimes think a great musical genius of the future will say, as Hegel did in his time:—­