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236 and mental strain to which a composer or an artist is exposed is fatal to longevity. An examination of statistics does not prove this true. In fact, the burden of proof seems to be the other way.

True, some of the careers that have promised most brilliantly, and have been at the same time a fulfilment of it, have been cut short in the glory of their young manhood. So many have finished their career in their third decade of life that it has come to be known in this respect as the "fatal thirties." Pergolesi ended his short life at 28; Schubert died at 31; Bellini was 33; the brilliant Mozart was but 35; Purcell, the gifted Englishman, and Bizet, who might have been another Berlioz, 37; Mendelssohn died at 38; Chopin and Nicolai, 39; Weber, 40; Schumann, 46. In several of the above instances the untimely end was the direct result of a lack of public appreciation and support; but in few cases the end was hastened by the demands of the art itself.

Now to the other side of the matter. Out of a large list of the greatest names in musical history, I find 69 per cent. to have passed their sixtieth year, and this list included the "fatal thirties," which tended, of course, to reduce the average. But why should the musician not be long-lived? The very conditions of his work may be conducive of that result. Says a recent writer on this subject: "There is nothing demoralizing in deliberately and for a definite purpose putting one's self or others through the experience of a highly strung series of emotions. It is even a good and very healthy function of art to raise one's feelings to their highest degree of intensity. It is a part of a correct system of discipline, calculated to bring the emotions into high condition and healthy activity, and to keep them in good state—may I say?—of repair. The body is intended and suited at times to bear an extreme tension of its muscles. The athlete is perfectly aware that systematic exertion and exhaustion must be undergone in order to raise his physique to its highest form of power and