He is not without literary talent and his tastes are refined. He is an enthusiastic collector of bric-a-brac, and rarely fails attendance at any of the more important auctions at the Hotel Druot. [Illustration: Fac-simile autograph manuscript of an “Album Leaf” written by Ambroise Thomas. ] Ambroise Thomas’ life as a composer for the Paris opera houses covered fifty-two years. In that time he wrote much charming music, but he never developed any individuality of style, never wrote anything so distinctively his own that it could at once be attributed to him by reason of any characteristics belonging peculiarly and distinguishingly to him. His earlier operas, produced between 1837 and 1848, are marked by refinement of taste, and graceful finish in workmanship. After that and until 1860 his method underwent a change, and he sought brilliancy and piquancy, as instanced in “Le Caïd,” and gradually warmed into poetic feeling and deeper sentiment, departing, in the meanwhile, from the conventionalities that Rossini and other Italian composers had fastened on French opera music. His growth in his art has been steady from the very outset, but if he has ceased to write after “Le Roman d’Elvire,” which ended this period of his musical development, his fame as a composer would hardly have survived down to the present time. From the opera just named to “Mignon” was an enormous stride, and the brilliant reputation this work made for him was sustained by “Hamlet” and “Françoise di Rimini.” But even these, his masterpieces, do not present him in the light of a composer who had something to say that had not been said before. His art evolution had enlarged his method of thought and had enabled him to give a wider scope to his talents, but it had not endowed him with a style that set him apart from other composers. We hear of the style of Auber, and it brings a clear idea of a strongly marked musical individuality to our mind. The same may be said of the style of Meyerbeer and also that of Gounod; but to speak of the style of Thomas would be to convey no such distinct and instant suggestion of a definite and an unmistakable originality, like that which pertains essentially to Bizet.