that duty is not fulfilled, the result is not music--it is nothing at
all.

Berlioz is thus the true inheritor of Beethoven's thought. The
difference between a work like _Roméo_ and one of Beethoven's symphonies
is that the former, it would seem, endeavours to express objective
emotions and subjects in music. I do not see why music should not follow
poetry in getting away from introspection and trying to paint the drama
of the universe. Shakespeare is as good as Dante. Besides, one may add,
it is always Berlioz himself that is discovered in his music: it is his
soul starving for love and mocked at by shadows which is revealed
through all the scenes of _Roméo_.

I will not prolong a discussion where so many things must be left
unsaid. But I would suggest that, once and for all, we get rid of these
absurd endeavours to fence in art. Do not let us say: Music can....
Music cannot express such-and-such a thing. Let us say rather, If genius
pleases, everything is possible; and if music so wishes, she may be
painting and poetry to-morrow. Berlioz has proved it well in his
_Roméo_.

This _Roméo_ is an extraordinary work: "a wonderful isle, where a temple
of pure art is set up." For my part, not only do I consider it equal to
the most powerful of Wagner's creations, but I believe it to be richer
in its teaching and in its resources for art--resources and teaching
which contemporary French art has not yet fully turned to account. One
knows that for several years the young French school has been making
efforts to deliver our music from German models, to create a language of
recitative that shall belong to France and that the _leitmotif_ will not
overwhelm; a more exact and less heavy language, which in expressing the