Vieuxtemps again! Monday evening I could not hear Vieuxtemps, but went on
Tuesday to hear C. Damoreau and Artot. The former, with the smallest
voice, sings pleasantly from her wonderful cultivation, of which, however,
the technicalities, so to say, are too much obtruded. She shakes through
all her songs, and this power, which would render her plain singing so
sure and pleasing, demands attention for itself, not because it improves
the tone of the singing. Artot is an elegant artist. He plays very finely,
wonderfully; but the greater his execution the more marked appeared to me
the difference between the highest cultivated talent and the supremacy of
Genius. He played difficult music, he shook and warbled and imitated, some
of his tones were very exquisite, but it was all lifeless, the passionless
semblance of beauty. I was as if walking in a Gorgon's ice-palace, with
magnificent, clear crystals, and noble, transparent pillars, and all the
artifice of beauty and comfort, but evermore a deep chill from the lavish
elegance. When he had done, I knew he had done his utmost, that he had
exhausted hope. In him I found none of that depthless background which
genius ever offers. He made sing in my ears the old text, "The things seen
are temporal; the things unseen are eternal." His performance is a thing
seen, not a dim beacon on the outskirts of an unexplored country, wherein
we hear birds singing and rivers flowing, and see the great cloud-shadows
fall upon the hills, where in the dim distance stately palaces are faintly
traced, and the depthless woods fringe unknown seas. Artot's playing
seemed to me like the full flower exhausting the plant; Ole Bull's like a
star shining out of the infinite space.

Flowers wither, but the stars do not fade. We gather the blossoms with joy
and hurry home; but the stars light us on our way and make our homes
beautiful. Talent has something familiar and social in its impression and
greeting; but Genius receives us with a calm dignity that transfigures
courtesy and complaisance, and makes our relations healthy and grand. The