Alison was busy making a curious drink that he found refreshing, which was a mixture of port and soda water (called Alison’s own) in exactly equal proportions. There must be just as much port as there was water, neither more nor less, else some recondite flavour was missed. He was a man of about forty-five, clean-shaven and alert: his great acquirement was an inward knowledge of Cicero’s letters so amazing, that when once he set a piece of Latin translation in a college examination, composed not at all by Cicero, but by himself, even the Master had been deceived, and asked him out of which of Cicero’s letters he had taken that piece. In other respects he played lawn-tennis, and was responsible, as precentor, for the music of the College services in chapel.
“Yes, it is a matter of some importance,” he said. “The Choral Society, of course, are giving their annual sacred concert in chapel during May-week, and they have most unfortunately selected Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ for performance. The Master tells me that he is inclined absolutely to refuse to give permission for it, but asked me first to consult some of you. I told him I should meet you three to-night, and he said that he desired no better subcommittee.”
“Is his objection to it on the score of Elgar, Elgar’s score one might say,” asked Butler, “or on that of Gerontius? If on that of the composer, I am disposed to agree with him. I know nothing about Gerontius, as a literary production, except that a hymn which we occasionally sing in chapel with a vulgar tune, is excerpted from it, I believe.”
Jackson chuckled.
“On the score of Elgar, Elgar’s score,” he repeated. “Very neat, Butler. I know the hymn you mean, ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height.’ It goes admirably into Greek iambics.”
“Equally well into Latin elegiacs,” said Alison. “No, the Master has no feeling against Elgar’s music: that wasn’t his point. But he could not see himself permitting the performance in chapel of a libretto so markedly, so pugnaciously Roman Catholic. I am bound to confess that there’s something to be said for his view. What do you say, Jackson? You are our spiritual pastor.”
Jackson took his stand by the fire-place, and put his head on one side.
“Well, if I’m bound to speak as from a rostrum,” he said, “I shall be disposed to ask for notice of that question. It’s an uncommonly nice point, and the question, of course, on which it all hinges is how far the purpose of a libretto is extinguished by being treated musically. I remember going to see Gounod’s Faust, of which the libretto contains some frankly intolerable situations. But somehow when treated musically they did not strike me as actually indecent.”
“The indecency of the music would be enough for me,” said Butler incisively. “Nothing else but that would strike me.”
“Ah, there’s our purist again. But just now the question is not so much of Purism as Puritanism.”