It was a Wagnerian piece he was executing, and many present declared it to be grand and magnificent. Whether they were able to comprehend its precise meaning it would not be so easy to determine.
However, the Italian professor sang on.
He evidently threw his whole heart into his work. He was a sound musician and an admirable vocalist, but he was imbued with the notion that the “music of the future” was the right sort of thing.
When he came to a conclusion many gave a suppressed sigh of relief, and many expressed their satisfaction by exclaiming, “Grand! splendid! remarkably fine!”
“What think you, Sir Eric?” cried one, addressing himself to Aveline’s husband.
“Oh, if you ask me my opinion,” cried the baronet, “I must tell you plainly that I consider all this fuss about Wagner is quite out of place.”
“Oh, my dear Sir Eric,” said Lady Marvlynn, “you don’t know what you say, I’m sure.”
“Don’t I, though?” returned he. “I most certainly do. I consider it humbug. I don’t profess to be an accomplished musician and am perhaps not a competent judge. Why, Lord bless us, I’m old enough to remember the time when this man’s music was laughed at and scouted in this country.”
“That’s right enough,” observed Captain Smither Smythe. “What a thing is popularity—or becoming the fashion would perhaps be the better term! The English public are afflicted every now and then with a sort of mad infatuation for eccentricity, and are apt to applaud to the very echo things they do not understand. As a proof of this I have only to refer to the furore for the Italian actor, Salvini. They made a god of him for a season, and then left him to flicker out and return to his native country a sadder and a wiser man. Doubtless he was duly impressed with the fleeting nature of popularity. Now it is the fashion to have a craze for a composer whose works are incomprehensible to me, and whose beauties are effectually hidden, as far as I am individually concerned.”
“Really, gentlemen,” said Lady Marvlynn, “you are paying Signor Marouski but a poor compliment.”