to speak, he wins his fights, yet they try to make out that he wins
them in an outlandish way, and that he has no real science. Now I
tell the gentleman not to mind such talk. As I have just shown you,
his game wouldn't be any use to him without science. He might have
beaten a few second-raters with a rush while he was young; but he
wouldn't have lasted out as he has done unless he was clever as
well. You will find that those that run him down are either jealous,
or they are old stagers that are not used to his style, and think
that anything new must be bad. Just wait a bit, and, take my word
for it, they'll turn right round and swear that his style isn't new
at all, and that he stole it from some one they saw when they were
ten years old. History shows us that that is the way of such fellows
in all ages, as the gentleman said; and he gave you Beethoven as an
example. But an example like that don't go home to you, because
there isn't one man in a million that ever heard of Beethoven. Take
a man that everybody has heard of--Jack Randall! The very same
things were said of HIM. After that, you needn't go to musicians for
an example. The truth is, that there are people in the world with
that degree of envy and malice in them that they can't bear to allow
a good man his merits; and when they have to admit that he can do
one thing, they try to make out that there's something else he can't
do. Come: I'll put it to you short and business-like. This German
gentleman, who knows all about music, tells you that many pretend
that this Wagner has game but no science. Well, I, though I know
nothing about music, will bet you twenty-five pounds that there's
others that allow him to be full of science, but say that he has no
game, and that all he does comes from his head, and not from his
heart. I will. I'll bet twenty-five pounds on it, and let the
gentleman of the house be stakeholder, and the German gentleman
referee. Eh? Well, I'm glad to see that there are no takers.