to some sad but sweet thoughts.

He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but
Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a
willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen
to the opera he had written for Paris.

"In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to
explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a
musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids
us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very
difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal
melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by
revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are
uncontrolled by the will of men.

"I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause
might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture
of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for
which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully
developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the
magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew
Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab
dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a
despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or
Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of
the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his
father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be
a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can
get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who