"I don't call that dry wine," he crossly said, and took another sip. "My
God," without a pause he continued, "isn't that great?"

Of course he was impulsive, even impetuous. Beneath his seeming cold
exterior and admirable self-control--the discipline of the master
artist--lay the moods and tenses of the musical temperament. He knew little
or nothing outside of music and did not care to learn. I tried to interest
him in politics. It was of no use. First he laughed my suggestions to scorn
and then swore like a trooper. German he was, through and through. It
was well that he passed away before the world war. Pat Gilmore--"Patrick
Sarsfield," we always called him--was a born politician, and if he had not
been a musician he would have been a statesman. I kept the peace between
him and Theodore Thomas by an ingenious system of telling all kinds of kind
things each had said of the other, my "repetitions" being pure inventions
of my own.




Chapter the Fourteenth

Henry Adams and the Adams Family--John Hay and Frank Mason--The Three
_Mousquetaires_ of Culture--Paris--"The Frenchman"--The South of
France



I