freedom of modern thought will not have to seek the help of the
classical or Wagnerian forms. Not long ago, the _Schola Cantorum_
published a manifesto that proclaimed "the liberty of musical
declamation ... free speech in free music ... the triumph of natural
music with the free movement of speech and the plastic rhythm of the
ancient dance"--thus declaring war on the metrical art of the last three
centuries.[84]

[Footnote 84: _Tribune de Saint Gervais_, November, 1903.]

Well, here is that music; you will nowhere find a more perfect model. It
is true that many who profess the principles of this music repudiate
the model, and do not hide their disdain for Berlioz. That makes me
doubt a little, I admit, the results of their efforts. If they do not
feel the wonderful freedom of Berlioz's music, and do not see that it
was the delicate veil of a very living spirit, then I think there will
be more of archaism than real life in their pretensions to "free music."
Study, not only the most celebrated pages of his work, such as the
_Scène d'amour_ (the one of all his compositions that Berlioz himself
liked best),[85] _La Tristesse de Roméo_, or _La Fête des Capulet_
(where a spirit like Wagner's own unlooses and subdues again tempests of
passion and joy), but take less well-known pages, such as the
_Scherzetto chanté de la reine Mab_, or the _Réveil de Juliette_, and
the music describing the death of the two lovers.[86] In the one what
light grace there is, in the other what vibrating passion, and in both
of them what freedom and apt expression of ideas. The language is
magnificent, of wonderful clearness and simplicity; not a word too much,
and not a word that does not reveal an unerring pen. In nearly all the
big works of Berlioz before 1845 (that is up to the _Damnation_) you
will find this nervous precision and sweeping liberty.