“_June._--No word from you for three months. Why is it? Does your father suppress our letters, or can it be that you, at last, believe the slanders you hear of me? “I got a pupil, so have managed to pay the printer. “I am very happy, life is charming--no pain, no despair, plenty of day dreams; to crown all, the _Francs-Juges_ has been refused by the Opera Committee! They find it long and obscure, only the Bohemian scene pleases them; but Duval thinks it remarkable and says there is a future for it. “I am going to make an opera like _Freyschütz_ of it, and if I win the prize perhaps Spohr (who is not jealous, but is most helpful to young musicians) will let me try it at Cassel. “No word have I had from you since I spoke of my hopeless love. Nothing more has happened. This passion will be my death; how often one hears that hope alone keeps love alive--am I not a living proof of the contrary? “All the English papers ring with her praises; I am unknown! When I have written something great, something stupendous, I must go to London to have it performed. Oh for success!--success under her very eyes. “I am writing a life of Beethoven for the _Correspondant_, and cannot find a minute for composition--the rest of my time I copy out parts. What a life!” Once more came June, and with it my third attempt on the Prix de Rome. This time I really did hope, for not only had I gained a second prize, but I heard that the musical judges thought well of me. Being over-confident I reasoned (falsely, as it turned out), “Since they have decided to give me the prize, I need not bother to write exactly in the style that suits them; I will compose a really artistic cantata.” The subject was Cleopatra after Actium. Dying in convulsions, she invokes the spirits of the Pharaohs, demanding--criminal though she be--whether she dare claim a place beside them in their mighty tombs. It was a magnificent theme, and I had often pondered over Juliet’s-- “But if when I am laid into the tomb,” which is, at least in terror of approaching death, analogous to the appeal of the Egyptian Queen. I was fool enough to head my score with those very words--the unpardonable sin to my Voltairean judges--and wrote what seemed to me a weird and dramatic piece, well suited to the words. I afterwards used it, unchanged, for the _Chorus of Shades_ in _Lelio_; I think it deserved the prize. But it did not get it. None of the compositions did. Rather than give it to a “young composer of such revolutionary tendencies” they withheld it altogether. Next day I met Boïeldieu, who, on seeing me, said: “My dear boy, what on earth possessed you? The prize was in your hand, and you simply threw it away.” “But, monsieur, I really did my best.” “That’s just it! Your _best_ is the opposite of your _good_. How could I possibly approve? I, who like nice gentle music--cradle-music, one might say.”