IMMORTAL YOUTH

A Study in the
Will to Create

Behold my most beautiful work:
the souls that I have sculptured.
These they cannot destroy. Let
the wood burn! The soul is mine.
—Romain Rolland: Colas Breugnon

IMPRINTED MCMXIX
McGRATH-SHERRILL PRESS
GRAPHIC ARTS BUILDING
BOSTON

The first printing of this memoir is one thousand copies. When these are gone, those who wish more can obtain them from McGrath-Sherrill Press, the publisher, Graphic Arts Building, Boston, Massachusetts, for one dollar a copy.

Select to hear music.

Transcriber's Note:

This quotation from Parsifal is given in the form of a piano reduction which does not convey well the "flourish of muted horns, remote, mysterious". Therefore, the piano reduction is followed by just the treble clef as it would sound played by horns.

IN the third act of Wagner's last music-drama there comes a flourish of muted horns, remote, mysterious. In it sounds the grandeur of that quest which never ends—the quest of the Holy Grail. The phrase is repeated, and over the flower-starred meadow under the April sun of Good Friday morning comes a knight in dark armor, his visor down, carrying the holy spear. It is Parsifal. His errand is the errand of aspiring youth in all lands and all ages. I set that phrase of music, compact with the poetry and pain of idealism, at the beginning of these pages in token of the spiritual brotherhood.

Portrait of the artist by himself

IMMORTAL YOUTH

Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
—Hamlet