a second perplexing consideration which follows the study of Cui's music. Possessed of this fragrant, but not robust, talent, Cui elects to apply it to themes of the ultra-romantic type with all their grisly accompaniments of moonlit heaths, blood-stained daggers, vows of vengeance, poison-cups, and the rest. It is as though a Herrick were posing as a John Webster. Surely in these curious discrepancies between the artist's temperament and his choice of subject and methods of treatment we find the reason why of all Cui's operas not one has taken a permanent hold on the public taste in Russia or abroad. And this in spite of their lyrical charm and graceful workmanship. Cui is now the sole remaining member of "the invincible band" who originally gathered round Balakirev for the purpose of founding a national school of music. He is now in his eightieth year, but still composes and keeps up his interest in the Russian musical world. Within the last three years he has published a four-act opera on the subject of Poushkin's tale, "The Captain's Daughter."[45] CHAPTER XII RIMSKY-KORSAKOV A contemporary critic has pointed to Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky as having, between them, built up Russian music to its present proud condition, "constructing their majestic edifice upon the everlasting foundation laid by Glinka." Making some allowance for grandiloquence of language, this observation is particularly true as applied to Rimsky-Korsakov, for not only was he consistently true to the national ideal in all his works, but during his long activity as a teacher he trained a whole group of distinguished musicians--Liadov, Arensky, Ippolitov-Ivanov Grechyaninov, Tcherepnin, Stravinsky--who have all added their stones to the building up of this temple of Russian art. At the same time, we must regard Rimsky-Korsakov as the last of those national composers who chose to build with exclusively local materials and in purely Russian style. The younger generation are shaping their materials under more varied influences. Rimsky-Korsakov, therefore, stands out in the history of Russian opera as one of the most distinguished and distinctively racial composers of that circle to whom we owe the inauguration of the national school of music in Russia.