For reasons inherent both in music itself and in man's sluggish and prejudiced perceptions, really great composers have usually to wait longer for recognition than do those of mediocre capacities. Music that is worthy of consideration is as individual as its composer's features or his unconscious habits. It is a tonal utterance of his most intimate nature, an inarticulate but clear expression of his strongest emotions,--a shadow-picture of his very soul. The more intense the nature, the stronger the emotions; and the deeper the soul of the composer, the less quickly can we apprehend the full import of his writings, for they are characteristic of him and foreign to us. Each period-maker adds so much to art resources and so materially modifies art methods, that he may be said to originate a musical dialect, with which our ears and minds have to become familiar before his poetic schemes can assume for us sustained and clear significance. Because of this alien character of pronounced originality, high-priestly honors are usually posthumous, for they are bestowed only upon those who have convinced the musical world of their fitness through the life-long, patient, and intelligent use of supreme endowments. It is the musical world only that has the power to confer high-priestly honors, for that office is not at the disposal of composers' friends or adherents, nor of parties or clans. One must have gained universal recognition as a beneficent and radically new factor in art in order to secure the requisite suffrages, and that requires so much time that but two of our six high-priests lived to realize the honor. Even Beethoven did not live to feel full assurance of immortality, but Wagner did. He knew that his innovations had been accepted by the world, that his achievements broadened the foundations of art and opened new channels for musical thought, that his individuality shone brightly across the broad sea of modern culture, a "beacon-light" of resplendent brightness, and that he was a period-maker, whose impress upon art was too deep to wear away, for he was a musician who abated not one jot or tittle of that which he thought was art's due. This working throughout life for posthumous honors is not so depressing as it would seem at first glance, for any man, however modest, if blessed with supreme endowments, must feel his power, and be buoyed up by the certainty of ultimate recognition. The art love, steadfastness, ambition, individuality, and imagination of truly great men are proof against the struggles and discouragements of the artist's existence.