One day, when we were alone, he asked me if I would write a series of articles on his works. It was my turn to be bewildered.
“A series?” I asked, utterly stunned.
“Yes,” answered he, “a series. First of all, there are my part-songs. Then there are my instrumental pieces. Last of all, my Cantatas.” He pronounced cantatas with a capital C. “Just a short series: three articles in all.”
I hesitated, but he looked at me most pleadingly. I tried a little sarcasm, but that made him more pertinacious than ever. So then I flatly refused, and kept on refusing, and did not stop refusing.
“Well, then,” said he at length, “will you put in writing and sign what you said to me the other day about my new work? You will remember that you said it was the best thing I had ever done, that it was original, full of vigour, astonishingly fresh, subtle in harmony....”
“Oh, really,” I protested, “did I say all that?”
“Yes, indeed, you did.”
[197]
]And then I became very, very rude indeed, and, after that, whenever we met, we used to bow to each other most politely and say never a word.
This kind of man, and there is quite a handful of them, haunts the more important Festivals, but it must be very rarely that one of them obtains what he desires.
. . . . . . . .