In addition to the works catalogued, Nevin has written a pantomime for piano and orchestra to the libretto of that virtuoso in English, Vance Thompson; it was called "Lady Floriane's Dream," and was given in New York in 1898. Nevin has also a cantata in making. It needs no very intimate acquaintance with Nevin's music to see that it is not based on an adoration for counterpoint as an end. He believes that true music must come from the emotions--the intelligent emotions--and that when it cannot appeal to the emotions it has lost its power. He says: "Above everything we need melody--melody and rhythm. Rhythm is the great thing. We have it in Nature. The trees sway, and our steps keep time, and our very souls respond." In Wagner's "Meistersinger," which he calls "a symphonic poem with action," Nevin finds his musical creed and his model. And now, if authority is needed for all this frankly enthusiastic admiration, let it be found in and echoed from Karl Klindworth, who said of Nevin: "His talent is _ungeheures_ [one of the strongest adjectives in the German language]. If he works hard and is conscientious, he can say for the musical world something that no one else can say." _John Philip Sousa._ [Illustration: Autograph of John Philip Sousa] [Illustration: JOHN PHILIP SOUSA.] In common with most of those that pretend to love serious music, a certain person was for long guilty of the pitiful snobbery of rating march-tunes as the lowest form of the art. But one day he joined a National Guard regiment, and his first long march was that heart-breaking dress-parade of about fifteen miles through the wind and dust of the day Grant's monument was dedicated. Most of the music played by the band was merely rhythmical embroidery, chiefly in bugle figures, as helpful as a Clementi sonatina; but now and then there would break forth a magic elixir of tune that fairly plucked his feet up for him, put marrow in unwilling bones, and replaced the dreary doggedness of the heart with a great zest for progress, a stout martial fire, and a fierce _esprit de corps_; with patriotism indeed. In almost every case, that march belonged to one John Philip Sousa. It came upon this wretch then, that, if it is a worthy ambition in a composer to give voice to passionate love-ditties, or vague contemplation, or the deep despair of a funeral cortege, it is also a very great thing to instil courage, and furnish an inspiration that will send men gladly, proudly, and gloriously through hardships into battle and death. This last has been the office of the march-tune, and it is as susceptible of structural logic or embellishments as the fugue, rondo, or what not. These architectural qualities Sousa's marches have in high degree, as any one will find that examines their scores or listens analytically. They have the further merit of distinct individuality, and the supreme merit of founding a school.