Such, briefly told, is the story of Richard Wagner and Modern Music. The "music of the future" has become the music of the present. What the future will bring no one can tell. Croakers say, as they have always said, that the race of giants has died out. But who knew, fifty years ago, that Wagner and Liszt, or even their predecessors, Chopin and Schumann, and the song specialist, Robert Franz, were giants? We know it now, and future generations will know whether we have giants among us. Things of beauty that will be a joy forever have been created by men of genius now living in Europe; such men as the Norwegian Grieg, the Bohemian Dvorák, the French Saint-Saëns and Massenet, the Hungarian Goldmark, the German Humperdinck and Richard Strauss, the Polish Paderewski. England has more good composers and listeners than it ever had before; and the same is true of America. We have no school of opera yet, but the best operettas of Victor Herbert and De Koven deserve mention by the side of those of the French. Offenbach, Lecocq, and Audran, the Viennese Strauss, Suppé, and Milloecker, the English Sullivan. The orchestral compositions of our John K. Paine are masterworks, and the songs and pianoforte pieces of MacDowell are equal to anything produced in Europe since Chopin and Franz. We have several other men of great promise, and altogether the outlook for America, as well as for Europe, is bright. AUTHORITIES. The books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles on Wagner would fill a library. He has been more written about than any writers except Shakspere, Goethe, and Dante. He was also fond of writing about himself. His autobiography (extending only to 1865) has not yet been given to the public; but there are many autobiographic pages in the ten volumes of his literary works, which have been Englished by Ellis. Of great value are Wagner's letters to Liszt and to other friends. These were utilized for the first time in "Wagner and His Works," the most elaborate biography in the English language, by the author of the foregoing article. Shorter American and English books on Wagner have been written by Kobbé, Krehbiel, Henderson, Hueffer, Newman, &c. Of French writers Lavignac, Jullien, Mendès, Servières, Schuré, may be mentioned. Of great value are Kufferath's monographs on the Wagner operas and Liszt's analyses. In Germany the standard work of reference is the third edition of Glasenopp, in six volumes, four of which are now (1902) in print. Other German writers are Porges, Wolzogen, Pohl, Nohl, Tappert, Chamberlain, &c. The best histories of Modern Music in general are Langhaus's larger work and Riemann's "Geschichte der Musik seit Beethoven." The best general work for reference is "Great Composers and Their Works," edited by Professor Paine of Harvard. References to about 10,000 articles on Wagner may be found in Oesterlein's "Katalog Einer Richard Wagner Bibliothek," 3 vols. JOHN RUSKIN. 1819-1900. MODERN ART. BY G. MERCER ADAM.