It was of these Wagnerian critics, who carry their love for the composer of “music-dramas” to the point of fanatic intolerance, even of ferocity, that Saint-Saëns was thinking when he wrote these lines, as well as others that we shall quote presently; and these same critics accused our composer of the crime of refusing to enlist under the banner of the master of Bayreuth. They sought to crush Saint-Saëns in their criticisms of his last great opera, “Ascanio,” by saying, not only had he here perpetrated the heresy of adhering to that form of opera that prevailed before Wagner propounded his theories of the “lyric drama,” but that he had also forgotten himself so far as to write airs in the Italian style! These amiable censors showed themselves more royalist than the king himself, for as a matter of fact Wagner by no means despised Italian airs; on the contrary, he liked them very much if we may believe what he has said. The following words of the composer of “Lohengrin” are worth remembering: “After listening to an opera by Bellini, that has delighted us, we discover on reflection, that its charm is owing to the clear melody, to the simple, lofty and beautiful song of the Italian composer. To treasure in the memory these delightful melodies is certainly no grave sin. Nor is it a heavier one to pray to heaven, before retiring to rest, that it may inspire German composers with the secret of these melodies and a like manner of using them.” The truth is that in music, as in all other arts, we do what we can rather than what we should most like to do, and he is wisest who is guided by his own genius. The genius of Camille Saint-Saëns is so rich in resources that he can safely trust himself and let the spirit work within him as it wills. There are composers who, forgetting that beauty is inseparable from high art, strive after eminence by seeking originality at any cost, and who do not disdain to make that art, harmonious before and beyond all other arts, the art of torturing our ears with music that is _per se_ inharmonious. Is not Saint-Saëns right when, in speaking of these psychological and hysterical composers, he says with peculiar felicity: “It is certain that we cannot work too hard to instil in the public a taste for pleasures of an elevated order; but to offer it what is ingeniously described as ‘painful pleasure,’ to offer a feast consisting of ‘exquisite suffering’ and ‘poetic perversion,’ merely ends in mortification. When we wish to mortify our souls we do not go to the theatre but to a convent.”