The Jean d’Ucelles of “Broken Music” is, his alleged gift apart, a feeble and contemptible youth, and, as his genius is merely asserted, there seems to be no good reason for tolerating the rest of him. A poor but talented young Baron, he comes to Paris to seek his fortune. After a momentary impulse towards asceticism, he becomes the kept lover of that staple character in current fiction, the greatest actress on the French stage. Tiring of her merely well preserved charms, he assumes a more equal relation with a young girl (with a marvellous voice) whom he deserts temporarily for the sake of a married siren, and permanently for the sake of his “career.” “Something has made a new man of me,” are his parting words, “and I have an idea that this new man will make a little music. Mon Dieu! broken music, perhaps, but one cannot have everything complete! At the bottom of all beauty I find that there is grief.”—The Nation, September 10, 1914.