Wagner had become the rage, and it only shows the sentiment of the pedants of that time, for of course these same individuals or their counterparts of the present day, would be as unwilling to acknowledge that music should not be totally subservient to the drama, as they formerly were to concede that the Meister possessed any particular merit whatever.

Al

During the past few months the slumbering fires of a passion I once conceived for our national game (which I had long regarded as smothered) have broken out anew. though at a tender age I reluctantly resigned my position at first base in a modest youthful nine, so as to preserve my fingers for work at the piano, Nature has again asserted herself and the result is a blaze of enthusiasm, so intense that I would rather see a good base ball match any summer's day than listen to a symphony. For the expression of this apparently heterodoxical sentiment, I am frequently taken to task, and the reasons I give are somewhat as follows:

In the first place the game is essentially American, not only because of its origin or rather development in this country but it is in its very nature a democratic institution. Of all forms of amusement it appeals to the largest number and the greatest variety of classes. There is to me sometuing peculiarly touching in the bond of sympathy between the millionaire and the newsboy, between the artist and the sporting man, which is awakened when a good play is made by one of the "home team," or when the chances for a wished for run are lost by a correspondingly fine catch on the opposing side. That those whose occupations call their muscular systems into action quite freely, should be fond of the game is natural enough, but to those of quieter habits it seems to me it is particularly refreshing. As a legal friend of mine observed a few days since: "When a man has been cooped up in his office several hours each day, what an inspiration it is to see a man with a fine physique like Connor or Anson go up to the bat and make a home run!"

It is useless to expect all who are fond of music to rave over Tristan" or "Faust," and there are those who refuse to be amused by the absurdities of "Erminie" or to be charmed by a song of the "Tit Willow" order. Those who admire the plays of Lessing, would fail to find much food for thought in the works of Hoyt, but in the excitement of a contest between two well-matched clubs, a pleasure as keen as that experienced by the ancients while witnessing the con

flicts in the arena are manifested by all sorts and conditions of men, while our modern tastes are not offended by the brutality which characterized those exhibitions.

It is especially praiseworthy in Americans who have the reputation of being nervous and dypseptic, when they evince à fondness for out-door sports, and of all games we consider baseball as the most glorious, it also stimulates the admiration for physical culture to a high degree. Nor are the mental faculties by any means neglected, for very often must a man in the field, or one running the bases, decide instantly which of one or more plays will be most beneficial to his party. There is no opportunity to ponder over a move, as in chess, where one may wait a week to decide upon a point if he choose.

Although my British friends will object, and I admit that I have had little personal familiarity with the favorite game of England, I must say that it seems to me that baseball is as much more interesting than cricket, as chess is superior to checkers, owing to the infinite variety of combinations afforded by the more complex games.

The dramatic inspiration which may be derived from a baseball match is wonderful. Let the spectator but imagine he sees before him one of the many scenes from the drama of life; the struggle between evil and good; the weaker oppressed by the stronger; the contest between poorly paid merit and opulent mediocrity; the fight against Fate where temporary adversity is often followed by success; and again prosperity is sometimes succeeded by an ignominious down

fall.

Are not these themes sufficient to furnish art material, and when they are made living realities by the artists of the diamond field, does not the attendant exhilaration prove an elixir sufficiently stimulating to aid in the digestion of this pabulum? May not one in this manner obtain ideas far fresher than if he were to hear continually the best of music, or see the most beautiful paintings, and would he not therefore, be less liable to run in the worn-out paths which his predecessors have trod?

We always hear of music as the language fo the emotions. Is not base-ball capable fo awakening some of the keenest sensations both of pleasure and regret? The lines of beauty which may be seen in the curves described by the "flies," which take every conceivable form, will always be appreciated by the artist. With music and the drama base-ball has this much in common. The catcher and pitcher (the "battery"), who are the soloists, can do little if they are

not well supported by the fielders, who represent the remainder of the cast. The faculty of pulling together (the ensemble) is a most important feature. We often see instances of great soloists who cannot or will not play well with others. In a similar way, some clubs whose members are all stars, may not do as good work as other clubs where the members may not be such maestros of the willow, but are willing to make sacrifices for the common cause.

The umpire corresponds to the art critic. Would that the public were only as capable of judging and condemning unjust decisions of the critic, as they are (or think they are) of those made by the poor umpire.

The element of chance, which lends such a charm to the game, opens the way for superstitions of various kinds. The most familiar are the Mascot and the Jonah, terms applied to individuals who are supposed to bring good or bad luck, and their presence is courted or shunned accordingly. To my surprise, I myself have proved a complete success this season whenever I have tested my mascotic powers, and have not lost a game even under the most adverse circumstances. Does a friend ask why I do not mascot my own affairs? I will simply say that Schopenhauer claims that a philosopher need not live up to his philosophy, nor a theologian to his teachings, so I suppose the same may be said of mascots.

This reminds me that we all must acknowledge that Mr. J. M. Ward does live up to the principles set forth in his interesting little book, "How to Play Base Ball."

His recent controversy with Prof. Proctor, with regard to the derivation of the game, interested me very much, and I wondered if either of them were aware that the game of ball is alluded to in the Book of Job, regarded by many as the oldest known literary effort. So it seems our most ancient ancestors were addicted to it, and who can blame them, for the fresh air, the contact with humanity at large, from whom a large amount of animal magnetism is absorbed— and the exercise given the lungs in applauding, are most invigorating, and a touch of spreadeaglism may be pardoned in us Americans when we claim the highest development of the game of ball!

ward action, and but little of visible deed. Yet no greater error could possibly be made in the study and estimate of human character than the error of assuming that the life of a man of letters is necessarily, or-if he amounts to anything-even possibly a life of apathetic monotony and gray stagnation. For such a man lives, not alone under the pressure of his own intense individuality, but under the stress and strain of the whole intellectual movement of his time. Every fresh wave of thought breaks over him. Every aspiration and every forward step of the vanguard mind of his period is to him a personal experience-because he must keen pace with it. The religious question, the political question, the social question, the scientific question, each and every one of these is of vital personal importance to the man of letters. He cannot be content, as so many other people are, merely to hear of these things and to pass them by; he must think out the problems of the age; he must reach some sort of a conclusion; he must have convictions, and he must speak his mind. To him is forbidden alike indifference and silence. A moral and mental responsibility rests on him, to serve his generation, to proclaim the truth and detend the right, to help others at the hard part of the way, and thus to fulfil the duty for which he was designed in the great drama of human development. There were very serious ordeals in the life of such a mantimes of sore mental conflict and cruel trial, hours of acute suffering, moments of splendid conquest and joy. Outwardly he seems placid, and the round of his existence looks quiet and dull. But under the calm surface of that silver tranquility the tempests of passion rage and pass, the powers of chatacter are matured and marshalled, and the strife of ideas accomplishes its appointed work. The representative man of letters is not seen in public affairs, and there is but little to tell of him when his career has ended. But his words are in thousands of hearts, and his influence lives and glows in a myriad of the good deeds of the men of action, who have imperceptibly felt his dominion.- William Winter, in The Tribune.

WHEN William Niblo built the theatre that bears his name, in 1828, the house was put up in fifteen days from the time that the foundation was laid. It held 1200 people and stood in a garden planted with flowers and exotics, where fountains played and firework shows were occa sionally given. A little bit of this garden remains between the present structure and the Metropolitan Hotel.

FROM A BUNDLE OF PRO

GRAMMES.

The fire will flicker and tremble

The last faint ember along, The flame will melt into ashes,

And that is the end of the song."

The end of the song, and still it echoes yet. A fragrant afterglow of that Easter Sunday night at Munich, when Henschel sent it thrilling out over the vast stillness that enwrapped the audience. His audience, then, as now, for the one corner of the heart that holds the memory of the song, must ever hold the memory of the singer, and it is our excuse, if excuse there need be, in allegiance to voices past their prime that hold for us a charm inalienable. We hear the songs they sang and not the songs they sing.

For chill of winter time, we have the soft June night. For blasts from snow-drowned steppes, the shadow of pomegranate blossoms swayed in flickering undulation in the moon-swept night.

A desk piled high with wreaths of laurel and roses, a sweep of orchestra, soloists, choristers, with the great organ towering a winged background.

A hush expectant through the massed space of stage and auditorium, and a figure, tall, erect, clad in a long, close clinging abbé's cassock. The order of Franz Joseph glittering at his breast, the coarse white hair thrown back from a face in which impulsive kindness lies almost vanquished by cynicism, heavy jawed sensuality, a contempt and advantage of man's weakness, relieved alone by flashing eyes, gleaming with mastery of occult power we name in him as greatness. A half inclination of the towering head, a toss that sends the white mane shagging back, and Liszt raises the

baton.

It has been a gala week, the vast processions wrought from Markart's luxuriant imagings have woven their kaleidescopic splendor to celebrate the twenty-fifth jubilee of happiness accession to Franz Joseph of Austria and his regal Bavarian Empress. Now, as a fitting clasp to all this splendid gaiety, a fitting prologue to the solemn season close at hand, the Kyrie of the Maestro's Coronation Mass, the mighty Gloria, scintillate in tonal splendor above a throng reckoning all lands among its auditors. Gay Magyr Princesses, glistening in smiles and diamonds; faint colored German frauleins, timidly shrinking in the shadow of dignified chaperonage, which fans and nods in respectful approval upon

the genial ensemble. A flash of uniforms in fan-fare of color mingling with the sober black which gives it background.

The galleries a mass of animated bourgeoisie, tremble and bob like a gigantic tulip bed in the wind of agitated curiosity, Viennese curiosity, which lets not sight nor sound escape unfettered.

Zellner is at the organ, Kremser hovers above the chorus, and Hellmesberger, Papa Hellmesberger holds the orchestra in leash, Papa Hellmesberger, who sets all the Kaiser stadt to laughing at his mots, who only last week declared his rival grün (green), now bowing away so industriously, to be good for the eyes, but not for the ears, a fact holding double truthfulness not usually accorded mots.

The fretted gold above, to-night so redolent of enthusiastic echo, can glitter back as redolent with glacial disapproval, to verify the uhr alt fact that many are called but few chosen.

Not quite a month of retrospect divulges a programme crumpled, torn in expressive jaggedness of outline, typographically noting a künstler abend, one of those choice occasions celebrant to brotherly vivisection, when art enthroned pronounces upon validity of claim to art's enthronement.

Life was couleur de rose, experience had not yet brought disillusionment, neither had it brought wisdom, and my provincial friend, with the seal of provincial success upon his art, was that night to me a realness of worth coequel with the dues that fall to greater lot. It seemed but part, but prologue of success, that stately bidding from the management, the long rehearsals in the grande salle chill with fading wintry sunlight, full of noisy echoes dropping back tones distorted to repeat again from the Bösendorfer grand, tinkling in a lonesome corner of the stage.

The night, like all nights, came and went again. An inquisition might be reckoned as contrasting kindness; a day holding long years of hopeful expectancy; a moment promising an ultimate reward, preluded with a flash of lights, bright toilets, a few gay words from fellow-artists just as drenched in hope as he who was to rise with one swift bound beyond what yet had set as limit of achieval. The epilogue, like all epilogues, had best been left undone, unless, indeed, like family portraits, it might blossom back as what the artist wished, rather than what he saw. A hurried sweep through page after page damp from presses scarcely stilled. No word, no token that the world had riven at this genius burst to sudden view, At last, in the smallest, the most obscure,

came one line. An epitaph of prophecy it proved: "Of such pianists as Herr Hthere are many." We failed to believe it then, as is the wont of youth to truth unbidden. But the golden ceiling linked echoings of two fates, and blossomed back on both in like serenity, as water reflecting sunlight or entombing treasure. With such a gaudy room, such plethora of fire and color as the Neu Gesellschafts hall in Vienna, one should only look for sparkling cadenzas, flame of tonal splendor, a drenching of mighty chords charged with the fire of a Beethoven or the lawless sensuousness of a

Rubinstein. But in the cool, quiet shadows of the quaint old Stifts Kirche of Stuttgart, with the chancel lifting its carven effigies of doughty knights, mailed and panoplied, into the shifting maze of moonlight, jealously distorted as it sifts through storied glass; a sweep of aisle tremulous in darkness; the organ loft a haze of glistening pipes, molten and silvered, making strange rhythm of color as the candles flame and flicker, jewels of light impaled on shadow, a soft mezzo voice yielding forth the tragic burden from Bach's Passion music -- Oh, sacred head, surrounded with crown of bleeding thorns!"fading, after a space swept in gloriant harmonies, into the immortal chorus, "Ruhe Sauft, Ruhe Sauft!" and the mighty work leaves a silence, a fulness of heart that follows us down into the grave—a spray of immortality vouchsafing hope, because so much is given beyond our hopings.

An operatic debut without orchestra, without sceneries or accessories, and not in a theatre; Wagner without patent mechanism or choking Feuer Zaub r; and yet it all took place, meeting, as has frequently occurred before, and under more vivifying influences, a general prediction of disaster, a shaking of the head and elongation of visage. He could act: yes, they had seen him act, and how well too, only a little while ago, before this fatal operatic idea had fastened upon him; he had shared histrionic honors of Graf von Essex with the great Ziegler at their own court theatre, so many years the scene of his excellent achievements. But sing, no, he had no voice. Alas! and alack! poor provincials, German provincials at that. Even he had not yet learned that to sing Wagner one must possess mime not larynx, leathern muscles rather than liquid tones, to portray that arabesque of descriptive sound pierced with vocal dissonance, which constitutes the Beyreuthian music pantomime. The "Legend of the Holy Grail" done with the piano, Lohengrin in a dress suit and engaging smile, needed one thing which

Lohengrin, with all the necessary qualities of the operatic Lohengrin, did not possess, and that was voice. Hanover claimed him as her own; Von Bülow held rehearsals from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon; at night the Hanoverians worshipped. America, hearing afar the reclame of largest words known to any language, sped to the scene and New York, led captive by circumstance rather than ability, as New York is wont, manipulated stocks by day and librettos by night with equal satisfaction to itself. In stocks there might be individual idea, but music, like medical prescriptions, should be taken as directed. A pair of flashing eyes scarce vailing their brimming humor in sufficient wise to render with becoming dignity the role in play. Two eyes that had last night, bewitchingly shadowed by a lace mantilla, tempered their winsomness with indignant flashes at forgetfulness of proper floral homages, tonight most generously atoned in unison by all the officers of His Majesty's Gelben Uhlans, now blooming and bristling in blue and yellow and burnished silver, in the two front rows parquet. A huge boquet of blossoms in strident shadings of red, white and blue, long trailing ribbons pressed with engoldened legend “An die beleidigte Rosina,” portending salvos of applause, loud hochs! and gay bravos.

A dainty letter and twelve daintier photographs as sweet reward, arousing in manly breasts emotions almost duellic because a dozen numbered, with the most precious counting, only twelve

The critics were hardly so kind then; used to the ox-legged perambulations of Teutonic donnas, they had failed to catch the brimming verve inspiring every gesture, each recitative. It bordered on the opera bouffe, they said, and later unsaid. When Berlin caught other fiat from Monsieur l'Empereur, who, though aged, was gifted with enthusiasm sufficient to cause Madame l'Emperatrice to sit in an opposite box, all Berlin than held the opinion masculine, and enthusiasm blossomed into fame, which might, sometimes, be pictured other than Goddess wrought.

Out into the free, into the open, this little bit of black and white flutters my thoughts. Below the Rosen-Arrasse of the Lieberburg a band is playing the ghost music from Die Freischutz. Across the valley black clouds, lined with jagged silver, trail a shadowy length along the sweep of pine forest crowning the Bopsei. A misty wind sighs forth as a wail of ghosts from out a long pent prison, bearing the music upward and onward until it loses itself in the shadowy