There were tremendous conflicts waged between these learned men. They were
all musicians: but as they all affected different styles, each of them
claimed that his was the only true style, and cried "Raca!" to that of
their colleagues. They accused each other of sham writing and sham culture,
and hurled at each other's heads the words "idealism" and "materialism,"
"symbolism" and "verism," "subjectivism" and "objectivism." Christophe
thought it was hardly worth while leaving Germany to find the squabbles
of the Germans in Paris. Instead of being grateful for having good music
presented in so many different fashions, they would only tolerate their own
particular fashion: and a new _Lutrin_, a fierce war, divided musicians
into two hostile camps, the camp of counterpoint and the camp of harmony.
Like the _Gros-boutiens_ and the _Petits-boutiens_, one side maintained
with acrimony that music should be read horizontally, and the other that
it should be read vertically. One party would only hear of full-sounding
chords, melting concatenations, succulent harmonies: they spoke of music as
though it were a confectioner's shop. The other party would not hear of the
ear, that trumpery organ, being considered: music was for them a lecture,
a Parliamentary assembly, in which all the orators spoke at once without
bothering about their neighbors, and went on talking until they had done:
if people could not hear, so much the worse for them! They could read their
speeches next day in the _Official Journal_: music was made to be read, and
not to be heard. When Christophe first heard of this quarrel between the
_Horizontalists_ and the _Verticalists_, he thought they were all mad. When
he was summoned to join in the fight between the army of _Succession_ and
the army of _Superposition_, he replied, with his usual formula, which was
very different from that of Sosia:

"Gentlemen, I am everybody's enemy."