Christophe felt sure what he had to do: but he had no poet, and he was
forced to be self-sufficing and to confine himself to music. And music,
whatever people say, is not a universal language: the bow of words is
necessary to send the arrow of sound into the hearts of all men.

Christophe planned to write a suite of symphonies inspired by everyday
life. Among others he conceived a Domestic Symphony, in his own manner,
which was very different from that of Richard Strauss. He was not
concerned with materializing family life in a cinematograph picture, by
making use of a conventional alphabet, in which musical themes expressed
arbitrarily the various characters whom, if the auditor's eyes and ears
could stand it, were presently to be seen going through divers
evolutions together. That seemed to him a pedantic and childish game for
a great contrapuntist. He did not try to describe characters or actions,
but only to express emotions familiar to every man and woman, in which
they could find the echo of their own souls, and perhaps comfort and
relief. The first movement expressed the grave and simple happiness of a
loving young couple, with its tender sensuality, its confidence in the
future, its joy and hopes. The second movement was an elegy on the death
of a child. Christophe had avoided with horror any effort to depict
death, and realistic detail in the expression of sorrow: there was only
the utter misery of it,--yours, mine, everybody's, of being face to face
with a misfortune which falls or may fall to the lot of everybody. The
soul, prostrate in its grief, from which Christophe had banned the usual
effects of sniveling melodrama, recovered bit by bit, in a sorrowful
effort, to offer its suffering as a sacrifice to God. Once more it set
bravely out on the road, in the next movement, which was linked with the
second,--a headstrong fugue, the bold design and insistent rhythm of
which captivated, and, through struggles and tears, led on to a mighty