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The tour ended with the hubbub over the fact that Strauss had conducted a concert in John Wanamaker's. Since 1898 Strauss has resided chiefly in Charlottenburg and, in the summer, at Marquardstein near Garmisch.
Strauss received a sound musical education; he could handle the old symphonic form, absolute music, before he began writing in the vein modern; his evolution has been orderly and consistent. He looked before he leaped. His songs prove him to be a melodist, the most original since Brahms in this form. Otherwise, originality is conditioned.
Can we believe that the disciples, returning to Galilee in fear, and bereaved of that master mind which had kept them from falling out with one another, would have remained a united and enthusiastic body? Strauss admits that their enthusiasm was for the time ended.
And yet to the eyes of an impartial observer the result was full of hope and encouragement for us. I have never bothered myself in art with questions of nationality. I have not even concealed my preference for German music; and I consider, even to-day, that Richard Strauss is the foremost musical composer in Europe.
When Strauss met us in the street and called to us with a certain unction in his melodious voice, "Good-morning, my dear children in Christ!" our hearts went out to him, and it seemed as if we had received a blessing. He and his son Otto used to call me "Marcus Aurelius," on account of my curly blond head; and how often did he put his strong hand into my thick locks to draw me toward him!
The public goes where it can find life, however coarse and gross. Why do you run away from life? Your Debussy is a bad man, however great he may be as an artist. He aids and abets you in your torpor. You want roughly waking up." "What about Strauss?" "No better. Strauss would finish you off. You need the digestion of my fellow-countrymen to be able to bear such immoderate drinking.
Or, if he would be a mummer at all costs, how much more would he not have pleased me if he had been a better mummer one more able to ape the guileless genius and classical author! For it yet remains to be said that Strauss was not only an inferior actor but a very worthless stylist as well.
"Well, maybe I am, but I don't need to have my own son apologize for my actions. If I have done anything that demands an apology I'll apologize myself." Lieutenant Strauss shrugged his shoulders, as he said: "I'll search the second floor, sir. Will you take the first?" "Yes," snapped the general, "and see that you make a thorough job of it." At this juncture Chester rose to his feet.
There is a complete edition of Theodore Parker's works, Channing's works, a volume or two of Robertson, one of Furness, the English translation of Strauss' Life of Christ, Renan's Jesus, and half a dozen more similar books, intermingled with volumes of history, biography, science, travels, and the New American Cyclopedia. The Radical and the Atlantic Monthly are on the table.
But it would have outlived the attack and conferred a very great benefit. It conferred a great benefit as it was, although not the benefit which Strauss supposed. The benefit which it really conferred was in its critical method, and not at all in its results. Of the mass of polemic and apologetic literature which Strauss' Leben Jesu called forth, little is at this distance worth the mentioning.
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