“Nearly all my stuff,” said he, “is on a big scale for the orchestra. I am always trying to do something new—something out of the common rut.”
“Ah, but then,” exclaimed Ronald, quite sincerely, “you are a composer, and I am not.”
Brian was appeased, and I looked at Ronald with admiration for his tact. But he went even a little farther.
“I sometimes feel rather a pig,” he continued, “making money by my trifles when so many men with much greater gifts can only rarely get their work performed and still more rarely get it published. You told us just now,” said he, turning to Brian, “that you would like to make money by your compositions. Who wouldn’t? Well, it would be foolish of me to advise you to try to write more simply, with less originality, and on a smaller scale. It would be foolish, because you simply couldn’t do it. No; you must work out your own salvation: it is only a matter of waiting: success will come.”
A month or two later, we met at Southport, I in the meantime having written an article on Ronald for a musical magazine. With this article he professed himself charmed. He was as jolly about it as a schoolboy, and expressed surprise that I could honestly say such nice things about him.
“It is good to be praised,” said he, laughing; “I could live on praise for ever.” And then, lighting a cigarette, he added: “Perhaps the reason why I like it so much is that I feel I really deserve it.”
It was my turn to laugh.
“But I do feel that!” he protested; “if I didn’t, I should hate you or anyone else to say such frightfully kind things about me and my work.”
A month or two later he wrote me a long letter full of enthusiasm for some work of mine he had seen [237] ]somewhere, and when I saw him the following week in London I protested against his undiluted praise.
“I believe you think I am a bit of a humbug,” said he.