Howsoever these things be, the ultimate question remains: Will the compositions of Mr. Strauss and his kind stand the test of Ambros? Is their æsthetic centre of gravity within themselves? That is a true test of all art works. The test of a Corot landscape is not its perfect portraiture of a place, but its complete and satisfying existence as a painting; and that, be it noted, is wholly a matter of artistic feeling in the work itself. The test of a poem is not its power to convey to the reader a mental photograph of the scene or action or thought which inspired the work, but to touch the reader's emotions, to stimulate his imagination by and through itself alone. Neither the observer of the landscape nor the reader of the poem is asked to look outside of the work itself for an explanation of its mood. The picture and the poem fully explain themselves. They lay before the mind both cause and effect. This music cannot do. Long ago it was called the language of emotion, and the embodiment of feeling is its highest province. Even in the opera, with the assistance of text and action, music should not strive to go further than this. Its office is to voice the emotions which lie behind action and speech, to raise to the tenth power those simpler and more limited inflections and tones of the voice which are used in the spoken drama. In the great instrumental song without words it is again moods and emotions that music must proclaim. Mr. Strauss may tell us that in "Also sprach Zarathustra" he did not attempt to do the things which makers of programme explanations accused him of doing, but merely to put before us, in music, the simple process of the religious and scientific development of the human race up to the conception of the Beyond-Man. How easy it all is, to be sure, and how stupidly devoid of imagination we must all be who fail to read it clearly in the music! If we fail to find it, it is our fault. Lichtenberg, a witty German, said, "If a monkey look into a mirror, no Apostle will look out." We may save ourselves much time and intellectual labor if we listen carefully to "Also sprach Zarathustra." Dr. Draper packed a history of the intellectual development of Europe into two substantial volumes which a thoughtful man may read in a winter; yet he may hear not only the intellectual, but also the religious development of the entire human race in Mr. Strauss's tone poem in about thirty minutes. A benefactor of mankind indeed is this philanthropist, who has not sought to write philosophical music. He has invented for us a kind of sugar-coated knowledge tablet. Abolish dry books and listen to the tone poems of Richard Strauss, and you will have the wisdom of the ages poured into your ears by trumpets and trombones.