is original, so much of promise, that it seems ungracious to cavil at its faults. Whatever its defects, it makes a vivid appeal to the imagination, and if Mascagni has taught nothing else he has, at least, shown how to achieve brevity of form.

Raised to the heights of success, Mascagni thought he now had nothing to do but sit down and scribble operas for the rest of his life. "L'Amico Fritz," "Iris," "Silvano," contain exquisite passages, but are full of mannerisms and cheap tricks. It was to be expected that his sudden leap to fame would turn his head for a while, and so it is difficult to believe that he has said his all in "Cavalleria."

Leoncavello, like Mascagni, is also a one-opera man; he has yet to repeat the success of "I Pagliacci." Born in Naples in 1857, he attended and finished at the conservatory there at sixteen, thence to the University of Bologna to complete his literary studies under Carducci, the eminent Italian poet, who has just died. Leoncavello began his career as a concert pianist, went to Egypt, but was obliged to flee for his life during the war with England. Penniless, he reached Paris and became an accompanist in café concerts. Later, he secured singers who wished to work up repertoire, and in this way met Maurel and Massenet. To quote Leoncavallo: "I read to Maurel my poem, 'Medicis,' that I had just completed. Struck by the magnitude of my self-imposed task, he advised me to go to Milan, where he promised me an introduction to Ricordi, the publisher. I pawned my furniture and left for Milan. The result of my meeting Ricordi was that he gave me the commission to write the music to 'Medicis,' paying me 2400 francs. For three years I waited in vain for its production. Roused by the success of 'Cavalleria,' I shut myself up in

sheer desperation, resolved to make a last struggle. In five months I wrote the music and the words of 'I Pagliacci.' The plot is taken from an event in real life that occurred at Cosenza, Calabria, when my father was holding a court of justice."

success.

"I Pagliacci' met with instantaneous In two acts, it deals with strong passions, a melodrama, like "Cavalleria." The Pagliacci are a troupe of travelling comedians, with their love affairs, jealousies and murders. The music is extremely clever and effective, but Leoncavallo has neither the copious nor original flow of melody of Mascagni, though he is superior to him in characterization and orchestration.

Perhaps Leoncavallo would prefer a serious estimate of his accomplishment based upon his "I Medicis." His plan was the writing of a trilogy of the Italian Renaissance, the first part to deal with the Medicis, the second with Savonarola, the third with Cesare Borgia. So far only "I Medicis" has been written. The libretto is of polished and exquisite verse and has one really dramatic scene. The musical themes are lacking in originality, but the orchestration is permeated with color, fancy and imagination. On the whole, the opera seems the work of brilliant eclecticism,-of one who has well digested the best scores of the world's composers.

"Roland in Berlin," written at the request of the German Emperor, and "Seraphita," founded upon Balzac's novel, are his other works. Leoncavallo leaves us with the impression that he has not yet quite found himself.

Of these three Italians who in recent years have visited our shores, it has remained for Puccini, who has just left us, to win something more than golden. opinions. Unlike his colleagues, he came, not to exploit his works on the

concert stage, but to give the seal of his approval to the production of "Madame "Butterfly." This winter his three operas, "Manon," "Tosca" and "Madame Butterfly," have almost monopolized the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. Our Latin friends are jubilant over what they consider the restoration of the Italian ascendancy in opera. Certainly the charm of Puccini's scores and Caruso's popularity as a singer have been strong elements in Mr. Conried's action in giving over his stage to the Italians, but it was also due as much to his inability to come to satisfactory terms with the singers of Ger

man opera.

Puccini was born at Lucca in 1858. He is descended from five generations of masters of church music. As a boy his hearing of Verdi's "Aida" caused him to decide for a musical career. He set steps toward Milan for the purpose of study with Ponchielli, the composer of "La Giaconda." For one year the late Queen Margharita paid his tuition, and the expenses of the next two years were defrayed by his widowed mother. These early years were fraught with hardships. His first two operas, “Le Villi" and "Edgar," went to pay for his restaurant bills and the long tenure of his room. Puccini and his brother were typical hall-bedroom boys. He told an American reporter that they lived on a combined income of twenty dollars a month. "We ran into debt right and left, and before the end of a month we often had to pawn our sticks, umbrellas and overcoats to obtain a little money for immediate requirements. We were also handicapped in having to pay our landlord promptly. When he brought us the registered letter containing the grant, he would wait until we had opened it, and would ask us to pay our bill at once. This meant that we had very little, and sometimes nothing, to remind us of the Government's generosity, except the envelope.

"As the landlord also conducted the café, cooking was absolutely prohibited in the rooms, but my brother was an excellent cook and we found housekeeping in our own room more economical than the landlord's meals. I liked chickens above all else, and whenever the exchequer contained enough we would purchase a fowl and smuggle the prize to our little room. My brother would perform the decapitation while I played the piano to drown the death squalls."

Puccini is a lover of country life and is master of several homes. A farmer in his place at Torre del Lago, a huntsman in the Apennines, a motorist by land and sea, he is an all-round man of affairs in life as well as in art.

It is conceded that Puccini has come nearer to creating a style of his own than any representative of young Italy. In 1894 his reputation spread over the world through "Manon Lescaut," in which he brooked comparisons with Massenet. He endeavored to realize im melody, harmonic treatment and orchestral color, the emotional content of his libretto. In the lighter parts of the story. Massenet's dainty music is far ahead; it: is in the third act that Puccini shows his strength by his masterly treatment of dramatic episodes.

Sardou's "Tosca" was his next essay, in 1899, in which are repeated the same qualities of exquisite melody, charm, power. "Madame Butterfly," founded upon John Luther Long's book, has won favor both in London and New York. cini is now working on a romance from Pierre Louy's "La Femme et le Pautin."

Puc

Puccini is at present the recognized head of the Italian school. Without the sudden blaze of notoriety that the work of Mascagni and Leoncavallo produced,. the operas of Puccini have been a steady growth toward truth, force and technical finish. Not to know Puccini now-adays is to acknowledge oneself woefully lacking in musical information.

F

ROM many people one hears a great deal of talk against "Humanitarianism." And from the other side much scorn is hurled at the folk who seem to be trying to save their "dirty, little souls" without much regard to the needs of their neighbors. It is very curious that, in this age of the world, opinions and points of view are as important in keeping up quarrels as they were at any previous time, and one sometimes fancies that it is not the thing brought about, but the fight itself that we like. For instance, I happened to say, in what seemed to be a most tolerant company, that I could never get much profit from Thomas a'Kempis, but that St. Francis de Sales and Fenelon were to me-in certain great passages-sources of deep consolation. My friends fell upon mewhich was bad enough-but I found that my attitude led to an attack on both St. Francis and Fenelon.

Similarly, it appears that the abuse hurled at the friends of humanity by the friends of a more supernatural belief and practise is very often caused by the desire for a fight which can be undertaken with a clear conscience. In fact, nothing is so refreshing to us as the enjoyment of the pleasure of hating our neighbor for the love of God. Men, being better haters than women, do not look for so many excuses for the delight of this exercise. Women, whose consciences are more delicate, must always have an excuse. This accounts for the fact that they examine reputations so carefully in order to find this excuse; and they generally find it. It must be admitted that women, unlike men, never demand the death of the sinner. When he has been pounded to a pulp, they are always ready with bottles of arnica and rolls of antiseptic court plaster. Men,

on the other hand, pay for the victim's repose in a hospital, that, when he improves in health, they may have another whack at him!

The folk who deny, are to-day held together only by the cohesion of doubt, for doubt may ever assume a dogmatic attitude. The modern Humanitarian who says, "I don't know that I have a soul, but, as you know you have a soul, let us work together for the physical improvement of others," ought not to be bludgeoned. He ought to be treated to a gentle example. We do not do that. We prefer because we like a chance to maul somebody (with a good conscience) to class him with that illogical and narrow-minded creature who says: "I have no soul, you have no soul, we have no souls, and I only wish there were a place of eternal punishment, so that all the people who believe they have souls could be crowded into it!" This is the attitude of some Agnostics here, and nearly all in France.

In many minds, a thought adopted by them at once becomes a dogma. We Catholics have to fight against this. tendency, which, if not destroyed, ruins growth, progress, kindliness, charity, and even sanity. Look within yourself and observe that this tendency to crystallize our impressions is at the root of our most unreasonable prejudices. "I think," with most of us who are not in the habit of taking spiritual and psychological exercises, soon becomes. "I know." And, after that, "all the king's horses and all the king's men" can not put the man we are teaching ourselves to hate in position again!

It is this dogmatic process which makes the militant Agnostic so offensive and illogical. It is the same process which makes you and me who are devout Catholics-so un-Christian. We

are always ready for a fight; it is in us. We like to put a man in the wrong, that we may pummel him. We do not want him to be right; in our hearts, we do not care for his soul at all; we want him to admit that we are right. If he seems to be doing good, if he claims the rights of a neighbor, we do not leave him to the mercy of God, hopefully; we say, "Let him go on; his kindness will not count in the next world, no matter how agreeable he may make this for other people." And then we sneer at his "Humanitarianism!"

But why sneer? It is the symbol of the envious. And when a man sneers, everybody knows that he is envious. Nobody but our neighbors know how transparent we are. When people cease to see through us, we shall be credited with villainies instead of weaknesses!

There can never be too much interest in humanity; may not the grace of God be earned through neighborliness, even by those who think that they are unbelievers? And there may be too little interest in humanity felt by some of us who, to save our souls, keep up a careful system of double entry bookkeeping with heaven. The nun, mentioned in an old chronicle, who complained that the cries of the sick disturbed her devotions, and was astounded that the Archangel sent her forth to work among the sick, without one prayer, for a thousand years, typifies our idea of righteousness. We have two lives; the spiritual life on Sundays and holy days, and the fleshly, fighting life on other days. And, if we do not get a good grip on ourselves, the fleshly, fighting clouds the Sunday life well out of sight. In nearly every Christian man's heart there is the deepseated opinion that his wife is a praying machine.. It is her business-as Heine said, her "metier"-to make his peace with God, and to keep him straight. The spiritual life to him is a sphere into which she drags him at intervals. We have all seen the triumph of the good

wife when she leads her husband from the altar at Trinity Sunday, and his pious self-satisfaction! She has had more to do with it than he, and he knows it. There is a fearful story of a Chicago man who was sent to an extremely unpleasant part of purgatory by St. Peter. His first exclamation was: "It's the old woman's fault!" That is our point of view. And it is due to this that we older men are so little spiritual, while we condemn the mere "humanists," and that young men who attend to their religious duties fairly well leave the really spiritual life to their mothers and sisters, and put so little of spiritual kindness, cheerfulness, neighborliness and peace into their daily actions.

ner.

The question is not of many and complicated devotions. The prayers that St. Dominic restored by means of the Rosary are enough for anybody. "I am not a great believer," said St. Teresa, "in making many signs of the cross. I have never liked nor been able to put up with certain devotions wherein are all sorts of ritual in which women, especially, find an attraction which leads them astray." There is no danger of any of us being led astray in this manThe question is as to how deep and real the union of each of us with God is. If the Humanitarian is too practical, too pragmatic, we, on the other hand, are not too spiritual. We often use talk about spirituality merely to hit him on the head. It is a blackthorn in the combat, that is all. If we men had the desire-which is the root of all religion on earth-to be united with Christ, our mothers, wives and daughters would not have to begin at Christmas a diplomatic campaign for "making" Tom, Dick or Harry perform his "duty" at Easter. To say that materialism has driven out of the world this desire for union with God is to show that our thought is foolishly dogmatic and incrusted with prejudice. We observe even among non-Catholics an intense

desire for that spiritual union with God which we find-when we seek it— in the Blessed Sacrament, and which they do not know. But how perfunctory we are! Our "duty" is done; Martha puts all her efforts into a festive breakfast on the great occasion; Mary spends hours in grateful tears in the gloom of the church. A brand-a selfcomplacent, rather condescending brand-is snatched from the burning on Trinity Sunday; the calf is dragged in, crowned with roses, and is made to think much of himself. Mighty Jin! when one sees one of these fat and prosperous Christians, surrounded by ordinary women relatives simply because he consents not to be a foolish infidel, one

longs to be an honest Shylock and gouge a pound of flesh out of him!

There! the fighting spirit again, just as the spirit of peace seemed about to descend! Still, righteous indignation has never had its place in our world since St. Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant and was not so valiant afterwards.

But, if we could only see-what so many women see-that Christ is ours and we are His every hour in the day, and that this actual sense of union is better than all controversies, all polemics, and all self-conceit, we should less seldom think of the angels as women, and remember that, theologically, they are of the male sex.

A

SCETICISM, or ascesis, as it is in Greek, is a term that indicates a certain attitude of mind, not only in the world of conduct, where the good as such is pursued, but also in the world of science, where it is truth we seek, and in the world of art, where beauty is the dominant factor. In the matter of conduct, asceticism has come to be associated with the doctrine of the pleasure of the pursuit of pain. And since we are so admirably constructed for suffering, it would be a poor philosophy that would take no account of "that appearance of unkindness which peeps out from the very soul of things" and makes the pleasantest of lives seem somewhat sad. Take up thy Cross is the keynote of spiritual ascesis-do without the unnecessary things so that you may be sure of possessing the one thing needful. This is also the law of ascesis in science and art: exclude all non-essentials, to the end that the one thing need

ful-the essential-may be revealed in all its beauty. In science this means jealous exclusion of all that is not true, a clear differentiation between theories as yet wholly unverified and laws partially verified, for partial verification is about all the merely human can attain to. "It is a poor science," as Carlyle tells us, "that would hide from us the great, deep, sacred infinitudes of our nescience."

But ascesis in science is not my theme, and, besides, I have always had a lingering suspicion that the majority—I would not say all-of our modern scientists are lineal descendents of the ancient sophists, and therefore not worthy of over-serious consideration. They are the men who possess wisdom; I prefer seekers for the philosopher's stone. It is with the ascetic principle as applied to the fine arts-to literature especially that I am concerned. And here again we find it as a principle of restraint, of renunciation, of deliberate omissions.