Mr. Carnegie was at that time a generous supporter of Gladstone and the Liberal Party, and several of its leaders came to Kilgraston to visit him, among them John Morley, who impressed me immensely and for whom at his own and the Carnegies’ request, I played excerpts every evening from Wagner’s “Nibelungen Trilogy,” explaining the music and the text, as Mr. Morley had never heard the music before. I was very proud of being able to interest so fine a mind as his in Wagner’s music, and like to think that my Wagner lecture recitals, which in later years I gave all over America, had their origin in these informal talks in Scotland for Morley and the Carnegies.
Incidentally, Mr. Carnegie became more and more interested in the New York Symphony and Oratorio Societies and consented to become their president and chief financial supporter. The more intricate symphonic works did not appeal to him, but he had a natural and naïve love for music. Because of his study and intimate knowledge of Scotch literature, poetry especially, together with an intense affection for the country of his birth, he particularly loved the folk-songs of Scotland, and in a high, quavering, and somewhat uncertain voice could sing literally dozens of them from memory. To me these folk-songs were a revelation, and I still think that they have a variety and charm beyond those of any other race.
I even adore the Scotch bagpipes and am almost in sympathy with the Scotsman who says that his idea of heaven is “twenty bagpipers a’ playin’ t’gither in a sma’ room and each one playing a different tune.”
On our long walks and fishing excursions together, Mr. Carnegie talked continuously and freely regarding his many plans to better the world through liberal benefactions. He had already begun the founding of free libraries all over Great Britain and America, and would often tell me of his own great poverty as a child and the difficulty of obtaining the books and education which he craved. His imagination would kindle at the opportunities which his libraries would give the youth of to-day, and a constant optimism as to the future of the world seemed to direct all his plans.
The poor salaries paid to our teaching profession would especially arouse his ire, as he considered that the entire future of America lay in the hands of its teachers and that, therefore, the greatest minds of the country should be enlisted in the work and suitably rewarded. As the reader knows, this conviction finally culminated in his remarkable and comprehensive scheme of pensions to college professors who had served their calling a certain number of years.
As he would unfold to me his various dreams and plans, he became really eloquent. His little hands would clinch, and for a moment even his fishing-pole and a possible trout at the other end would be forgotten, especially when he talked of his greatest aversion—war—and of its hideous uselessness in settling any disputes.
As a boy he had had hardly any school education, but he had inherited the Scotch passion for books. He had read omnivorously and, what is better still, remembered what he read. Burns and Shakespeare he knew by heart and could quote very aptly to clinch a point in his arguments.
His sympathy for suffering, especially that caused by poverty, was very great and expended itself in practical help in every direction. The hard struggles of his early youth had made him very understanding, and many widows left destitute received immediate help from him and the children were put through school and placed in business through his assistance.
His attitude toward religion was very curious. In those days he professed to be an agnostic, but he had old Scotch prejudices in favor of a “Scotch Sunday.” He despised theology and yet was really religious, but he did not care to define his God or to explore the mysteries or possibilities of a future life. His prejudices were as unyielding as the pig iron which he manufactured at his Homestead works, and no argument would move him if his mind was made up.
While Mr. Carnegie had a real admiration for music in its simpler forms, this never crystallized into as great a conviction regarding its importance in life as that which he had regarding the importance of science or literature, and though always generous in its support, his benefactions never became as great as in other directions. He could understand that a library, a school, or a hospital could not and should not be self-supporting, but I could not convince him that music should fall into the same category. He always insisted that the greatest patronage of music should come from a paying public rather than from private endowment. He built Carnegie Hall in order to give New York a proper home for its musical activities, but he did not look upon this as a philanthropy, and expected to have the hall support itself and give a fair return upon the capital invested.