Hence his great injustice to Carvalho, who, for Art’s sake, sacrificed money, time and reputation to an extent that crippled him for many years.
Embittered by the failure of his opera, which ran for about twenty-five nights, he shut himself up in his rooms with Madame Recio, his devoted mother-in-law, and an old servant, and from that time visited only a few intimate friends.
One last shock Fate held in store. Louis died of fever abroad, and for his lonely father life had no more savour—he simply existed, with, however, two last flashes of the old bright flame. One when, at Herbeck’s desire, he went to Vienna to conduct the Damnation de Faust, and the other when the Grand Duchess Helen prevailed on him to visit St Petersburg again.
That was the real end.
On leaving Russia he wandered drearily to Nice—a ghost revisiting its old-time haunts—then made one last appearance at Grenoble, and so the flame went out. He who had never peace in life was at rest at last.
Of his music this is not the place to speak. He has fully described his own ideas, others have analysed them, and we are now concerned with the man himself.
To this is due the somewhat disjointed form of the translation—the mixture of Memoir and Letters. It seemed the only possible way of showing Berlioz in all his aspects and of keeping the record chronologically correct.
Yet we could wish that he, who had so much affinity with England and its literature, could meet with due appreciation here.
He has founded no school (in spite of Krebs’ prophecy), unless the “programme music” now so much in vogue can be traced back to him, but, beginning with Wagner, every orchestral composer since his day owes him a debt of gratitude for his discoveries—his daring and original combinations of instruments, and his magnificent grouping and handling of vast bodies of executants.