All these conditions more or less influence the distance the harpoon is thrown, which is commonly known as "darting distance." In many cases some of the "long dartmen" have thrown their harpoons effectively as far as four or five fathoms. There is one case on record in which a remarkable dart is mentioned. Two boats belonging to different ships, American and English, were chasing the same whale, when one harpooner threw his iron over the

would be to swallow a small bird with its feathers. But he will crush you in his ponderous jaws, if he is a fighting bull, and eject you in detail. He will also chew up and spit out pieces of the demolished boat, break up the wooden utensils floating upon the water, and fight every piece of wood until more than seven baskets of fragments may be taken up; and having tired himself out in this way, he will lay off, angrily slapping the water with his fins, and challenge

crew of the other boat, and "fastened on to" the whale. The boat-steerers pride themselves upon their darts, and the heroic deeds that have been performed in this manner would fill a chapter of wonderful events. I say heroic, for many whalemen have lost their lives endeavoring to strike whales, when they might have abandoned the attempt and saved themselves by jumping into the water and swimming around until picked up by their own or other boats. But this would be cowardice, and very little of this material is found in the class of men selected for harpooners.

Approaching a whale at all times is like going into battle, notwithstanding the abandon of the fishermen. Have no fear that the right whale will swallow you; he could not do so even if he were so disposed, as his gullet is only large enough to admit a good-sized herring. The sperm-whale could swallow a man if he desired to do so; but he is no more inclined to swallow a man, particularly with his clothes on, than you

some other boats, or perhaps, in rare cases, attack the vessel.

The capture of the whale, full of perils at all times, has been shorn of some of its dangers by the introduction of guns and bomb-lances. At least, it would seem so. Still, the record of accidents shows that the mishaps of the old style of fishing and those of the new are about evenly balanced. If it were not for the bombguns, few whales could be taken at present in any ocean. As the old style of killing the whale with the hand-lance was not only more dangerous but more exciting, I shall briefly refer to the manner in which it was accomplished.

The whale being well harnessed to the boat by means of the tow-line, which is fastened to the flesh-imbedded harpoon, it may either turn flukes and sound, or, bellowing at times like a bull,- with a greater volume of voice, however,-it may run, as it is termed, taking the boat in tow at a rate, it has been estimated, all the way from fifteen to twenty miles an hour, when it first

starts off, but settling down to about eight or ten knots per hour, when it gets warmed up to its work. This is the old " Nantucket sleigh-ride." The whale having tired itself by running, the boat is hauled up by the line, and side by side the crew, with hair standing on end, and the affrighted whale, startled anew by the close proximity of so strange a load, rush through the surging and fast-receding waters. The officer" gets a set" with his hand-lance, and plunges about five or six feet of cold iron into the lungs of the victim, and perseveres without ceasing in the up and down motions, familiarly known as "churning," as the boat persistently clings to the whale, until the spout of the unfortunate cetacean is tinged with the crimson of its own life-blood. The muscles of the strong arms now relax upon the lance, the boat is laid off, and the dying whale swims round and round in an unbroken circle. This is the "flurry." Death is now merely a question of time. The blood ejected through the spiracles now becomes as thick as tar. It is not only a belief of whalemen, but it is usually the fact, that the whale, during its dying moments, so times its encircling path as to place its

head to the sun. It now makes a heavy lurch, the sea is lashed into a maëlstrom of bloody water, and the ponderous whale rolls heavily on its side, or partly on its back, with the fin projecting above the water. This is "finning out." A one-sided jury would say that the whale died of hemorrhage of the lungs. To use a paradoxical expression, some dead whales are not always dead. It may be in a comatose state, but averse to vivisection; and when the men again approach it, and cut holes through the lips to make the line fast, to tow it to the vessel, a demolished boat or loss of life and limbs may be the reward. Hence the more cautious whalemen" prick his eye," and if the whale does not flinch, it is supposed to be dead. Several boats take their position in line like a tandem team of horses; the tow-ropes are properly adjusted, and the men with merry boat-song begin the laborious and monotonous task of towing the whale to the vessel. A dead whale may be towed more easily head first, and it is also worthy of mention that a dead whale, when cast adrift, will beat to windward, the natural motions of the flukes having a tendency to propel the body. James Temple Brown.

HE young men of to-day can hardly imagine the éclat, the magical prestige, with which the name of Liszt flashed upon the horizon of the young musicians of the early part of the Second Empire-a name so foreign to the ears of a Frenchman, sharp and hissing as the edge of a sword that cuts through the air, torn by the Slavic Z as by a stroke of lightning. The artist and the man seemed to belong to fairyland. After having embodied on the piano the spirit of romanticism, Liszt, leaving behind him the glittering trail of a meteor, disappeared for a while behind the curtain of clouds which then veiled Germany-a Germany different from the one of our day; a mass of little kingdoms and independent duchies, bristling with turreted castles, and preserving even in its Gothic script the look of the middle ages, every trace of which had disappeared from France, in spite of the efforts of the poets to restore its beauty.

The greater part of the pieces which Liszt published seemed beyond the possibility of any executant but himself, and were so indeed, if played according to the old methods, which required perfect immobility of the whole body, the elbows close to the side, and allowed only a

limited action of the forearm. It was known that at the court of Weimar, disdainful of his former success, he was occupied with serious composition, dreaming of a renovation of art a purpose which excited much anxious comment, as is always the case when a new world is to be explored or an accepted tradition broken. Moreover, the impressions left by Liszt in Paris gave ample ground for all sorts of surmises. Even the truth did not always appear probable when it was told about him. It was said that at a concert of the Conservatory, after the "Pastoral Symphony" of Beethoven had been performed, he had dared to play the whole composition over again alone, the amazement of the audience being quickly replaced by a tremendous enthusiasm. Again, it was said that another day, bored with the docility of the public,- tired of seeing this lion, ready to tear to pieces any who displeased it, forever fawning at his feet,-he determined to rouse it, and amused himself by coming late to a concert at the Italiens, and calling on some fine ladies in their boxes, laughing and chatting, until the lion began to growl and roar. At last he seated himself at the piano, when the fury abated, the only demonstrations being those of pleasure and admiration.

Many things more are told of him, which are hardly within the limits of this article. Only

too much has been said of his success with the women of his day, his taste for princesses, and all the exterior phases of his personality. It is high time for us to take account with more care of his serious side, and of the important rôle which he played in contemporary art.

The influence of Liszt on the destiny of the piano was immense. I can best compare it with the revolution brought about by Victor Hugo in the mechanism of the French language. This influence was more powerful than that of Paganini in the world of the violin, because Paganini dwelt always in an inaccessible region where he alone could live, while Liszt, starting from the same point, deigned to descend into the practical paths where any one could follow who would take the trouble to work seriously. To play like him on the piano would be impossible. As Olga Janina said, in her strange book, his fingers were not human fingers; but nothing is easier than to follow the course he marked out, and in fact every one does follow it whether he knows it or not. The great development of sonority of tone, with the means of obtaining it, which he invented, has become the indispensable condition and very foundation of modern execution.

These means are of two kinds: the one pertaining to the technical methods of the performer, especially gymnastic exercises; the other to the style of writing for the piano, which Liszt completely transformed. Beethoven, scornfully ignoring the limits of nature, imposed his tyrannous will upon the strained and overtaxed fingers, but Liszt, on the contrary, takes them and gently exercises them in their own natural direction, so that the greatest amount of effect they are capable of producing may be obtained; and, therefore, his music, so alarming at first sight to the timid, is really less difficult than it appears; for by hard work the whole body is brought into play and talent is rapidly developed. We owe to him also the invention of picturesque musical notation, thanks to which, by an ingenious disposition of the notes, and an extraordinary variety in presenting them to the eye, the author contrived to indicate the character of a passage, and the exact way in which it should be executed. To-day these refined methods are in general use.

strument. His method of attaining this end a method not indeed within the reach of every one-consists in substituting in the transcription a free translation for a literal one. Transcription thus understood and practised becomes in a high degree artistic; the adaptations by Liszt for the piano of the symphonies of Beethoven-above all that of the Ninth for two pianos-may be regarded as masterpieces in this line. To be just, and to give every one his due, it must be said that the colossal work of arranging Beethoven's nine symphonies for the piano had already been attempted by Kalkbrenner, who deserves great credit for it; and although he was not strong enough for the task,

But above all we owe to Liszt the introduction on the piano of orchestral effects and of sonority, so far as these are possible on that in

LISZT'S LAST WALK, AUGUST 15, 1886.

this attempt very probably gave the first start to Liszt's glorious work.

Liszt, undeniably the incarnation of the genius of the modern pianoforte, saw his compositions, for this very reason, discredited and spoken of scornfully as "pianist's music." The same disdainful title might be applied to the work of Robert Schumann, of which the piano is the soul; and if no one has thought of reproaching him, it is because Schumann, in spite of great effort in that direction, was never a brilliant performer; he never left the heights of "legitimate" art to revel in picturesque illustrations on the operas of all coun

tries. But Liszt, at that time, without caring what was said of him, scattered lavishly and at random the pearls and diamonds of his overflowing imagination.

Let me say in passing that there is a great deal of pedantry and prejudice in the scorn which people often affect for works like the "Fantaisie" on "Don Juan," or the "Caprice" on the "Faust" waltz. There is more talent and real inspiration in such works than in many compositions we see produced every day, more serious in appearance, but of empty pretentiousness. Has it ever occurred to any one that the greater part of the celebrated overtures,-those of "Zampa," "Euryanthe," and "Tannhäuser," for example, are really only fantasies on the motives of the operas which they precede? By taking the trouble to study the fantasies of Liszt, it will easily be seen to what degree they differ from any sort of pot-pourris-pieces where tunes of an opera taken at random only serve as a canvas for arabesque, garlands, and ribbons. It will be seen that the author knew how to draw the marrow from any bone; that his penetrating genius knew how to discover and fructify an artistic germ, however hidden under vulgarities and platitudes. When he attacks a great work like "Don Juan" he brings out the principal beauties, and adds a commentary which helps us to understand and appreciate its marvelous perfection and perennial youth.

The ingenuity of his pianoforte combinations is simply prodigious, as the admiration of all who cultivate the piano testifies; but I think perhaps the fact has not been sufficiently noticed that in the least of his arrangements the intelligence of the composer makes itself felt, the characteristic "earmark" of the great musician is apparent, if only for an instant.

Applied to such a pianist, who draws from the piano the soul of music, the term "pianist" ceases to be an insult, and "pianist's music" becomes a synonym for musician's music, and indeed who, in our time, has not felt the powerful influence of the piano? This influence began before the piano itself-with the welltempered clavichord of Sebastian Bach. From the day when the "temperament" of the scale introduced the interrelation of sharps and flats,

1 TEMPERAMENT.-In music, the principle or system of tuning in accordance with which the tones of an instrument of fixed intonation are tuned, or those of the voice or of an instrument of free intonation are modulated in a given case. The relative pitch of the tones of an ideal scale may be fixed with mathematical precision. An instrument tuned so as to produce such a scale, or a voice or instrument using the intervals of such a scale, is said to be tuned or modulated in pure or just temperament. So long as these tones only are used, no further adjustment is necessary. But if modulation be attempted, so that some other tone than the original one becomes the key-note, one or more intercalary tones are required,

and made the practice of all keys allowable, the spirit of the clavier entered the world. The invention of hammer mechanism, secondary from the point of view of art, has produced the progressive development of a sonority unknown to the clavichord, and immense material resources which, by the introduction of the unlimited use of the heretical enharmonic system, have made the piano the devastating tyrant of music.2

From this heresy, to be sure, proceeds nearly the whole of modern art. It has been too rich in results to allow us to deplore it, but it is nevertheless a heresy, destined to disappear some day,-a day probably far distant, but inevitable,-in consequence of the same revolution that gave it birth. What will remain then of the art of to-day? Perhaps Berlioz' alone, who, not having used the piano, had an instinctive aversion to enharmonic writing. In this he is the opposite of Richard Wagner, who pushed this principle to its extreme limits, and who was the embodiment of the enharmonic system. The critics, and in their turn the public, have nevertheless put Wagner and Berlioz in the same box-a forced conjunction that will astonish future ages.

Without wishing to linger too long over the fantasies which Liszt wrote on the motives of operas (there is a whole library of them), we should not forget to mention his "Illustrations du Prophète," which comes to a climax as dazzling as it is unexpected, or the "Fantaisie and Fugue" for organ on the chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam." This last is a link between the arrangements, more or less free, and the original work of the author. It is a gigantic composition, the performance of which lasts not less than forty minutes, and it has this distinctive characteristic, that the theme does not once appear alone in its integrity. It runs through the whole, but below the surface, just as the sap circulates through a tree. The organ is treated in an unusual way, which greatly augments its resources. The author seems to have foreseen by intuition the recent improvements in the instrument, just as Mozart in his “Fantaisie and Sonata in C Minor" divined the modern piano. A colossal instrument easily handled, a performer thoroughly familiar with the mechanism of the organ and piano, are inand the relative pitch of some of the original tones has to be altered. To fit an instrument for varied modulations, therefore, either a large number of separate tones must be provided for, or the pitch of some of them must be slightly modified, so that a single tone may serve equally well for either of two or more tones whose pitches are theoretically different.-THE CENTURY DICTIONARY.

2 ENHARMONIC.-Pertaining to a use of notes which, though differing in name and in position on the staff, refer on instruments of fixed intonation, like the pianoforte, to identical keys or tones.-THE CENTURY DICTIONARY.