Among the other recipients of degrees on that occasion was Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, Baron of Kandahar, who, in his scarlet uniform beneath his doctor’s robe, received of course the most uproarious welcome. At that time no one dreamed that twenty-three years later he would go around England uttering solemn warning against the inevitability of war with Germany and bidding England gird on her sword and prepare, only to be laughed at as an alarmist and publicly reprimanded by politicians for seeking to arouse such feeling against a “friendly power.” In the evening a great banquet was given in the refectory of the college, and by good luck I was placed next to Tschaikowsky. He told me during the dinner that he had just finished a new symphony which was different in form from any he had ever written. I asked him in what the difference consisted and he answered: “The last movement is an adagio and the whole work has a programme.” “Do tell me the programme,” I demanded eagerly. “No,” he said, “that I shall never tell. But I shall send you the first orchestral score and parts as soon as Jurgenson, my publisher, has them ready.” We parted with the expectation of meeting again in America during the following winter, but, alas, in October came the cable announcing his death from cholera, and a few days later arrived a package from Moscow containing the score and parts of his Symphony No. 6, the “Pathétique.” It was like a message from the dead. I immediately put the work into rehearsal and gave it its first performance in America on the following Sunday. Its success was immediate and profound. We gave it many repetitions that winter and I have played it since in concerts all over the United States. Other orchestras have cultivated it with equal assiduity, and in fact for me the time came several years ago when I cried a halt and let the work lie fallow, as it had evidently been overplayed and its high-strung rhythms had excited the nerves of executants and audiences so often that they were in danger of being overstrained.