But this adept metropolitan is also an inveterate nomad. Not content with traveling all over Europe in his virtuoso tours, he has long had the habit of wintering in outlandish places like the Canary Islands. Often he leaves home without announcing to any one his departure, or even giving friends his addresses; sometimes without knowing himself where he will go. The spectacle of distant lands and alien races has for him an inexhaustible fascination. In writing of his experiences in England, where he went in 1893 to receive the doctor's degree from Cambridge, he dwells with gusto on the procession of dignitaries, at the head of which, he says, «marched the King of Bahonagar, in a gold turban sparkling with fabulous gems, a necklace of diamonds at his throat.» «Dare I avow,» he adds, «that, as an enemy of the banalities and the dull tones of our modern garments, I was enchanted with the adventure?» And in his charming little essay, «Une Traversée de Bretagne,» the same enthusiasm throws about his oboe-playing ship-captain the glamour of romance. On his first trip to the Canaries, made incognito, he is said to have offered himself as a substitute to sing a tenor part in «Le Trouvère,» and to have come near appearing in this incongruous rôle. When his grand opera, «Ascanio,» was produced at Paris, he scandalized his friends and the public by being absent from the first performance. Diligent inquiry, and even the efforts of the diplomatic agents of the Government, failed to discover his whereabouts, and it was actually rumored that he had died in Ceylon, on his way to Japan. But all the while he was happily basking in the sun at Palma, scribbling verses. Finally his fondness for astronomy is well known, and he is said to have a private observatory in some «ultimate island.» There is much about this picturesque Frenchman that reminds one of the heroes of Jules Verne's romances.
When he is at home, Saint-Saëns carries on a many-sided activity of which composition is hardly more than half. For one thing, he is indefatigable in his efforts to improve public taste. In 1864 he gave in a series of concerts all the concertos of Mozart; in 1878, such is the catholicity of his taste, he organized concerts to produce Liszt's Symphonic Poems. He has done much for musical bibliography by his careful editions of Gluck, Rameau, and others. In 1871 he took active measures to better the opportunities of young native composers. At that time, as he puts it, «the name of a composer at once French and living, upon a programme, had the property to put everybody to flight.» The great improvement that has taken place since then is due largely to him and his brother-workers of the National Society of Music.