This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

been realized. His sympathy with my work, with what I was trying to do, which he saw almost immediately, saw, indeed, in the beginning, more clearly than I saw it myself, was complete. He was never weary of talking about it, at any rate he never showed me that he was weary, and naturally this drew us very closely together, for an author is fondest of those men who talk the most about his work. But this is not the place to publish his opinions of me, although some of them were so curious and faro seeing—they were not all flattering by any means—that I shall undoubtedly recur to them in my autobiography. Fortunately for me, his sympathy grew as my work progressed, and it seemed amazing to me later, looking over the book after a period of years, that he had found anything pleasant to report of Music After the Great War. He had, indeed, seen something in it, and when I recalled what he had said it was impossible to feel that he had overstated the case in the interests of friendship. He had seen the germ, the root of what was to come; he had seen a suggestion of a style, undeveloped ideas, which he felt would later be developed, as indeed, to a limited extent, they were. His plea, to put it concisely, had been for a more personal expression. He was always asking me, after this or that remark or anecdote in conversation, why I did not write it, just as I had said it or told it, and it was a great pleasure for him to per-