The musical life of a place like New York is not a portion of the veritable body of existence. It is more something detached from the reality, a sort of shadow-day. The concert people do not make music with what they live outside the concert hall. That, never enters it. A vital criticism, however, would stomach no such shadowy music. It would demand a whole of life for the concert room. The critic no less than the performer is the champion of values. If the performer brings the meat to market, the critic sees to it that the meat is fresh. It is his work to insist that the standards of life remain undegraded. But the critic, to have a sense of values, must bring his sensibility with him into the hall; and the critics typified by Mr X——— seem persistently to check their sensibilities outside with the umbrellas and overshoes, and to bring to play on the performances a quality of intelligence which they would not dare apply to any other business of life. They, too, fall into the pattern of the music-people. Hence, any one who so wishes can insult the public with empty music and empty playing. For someone in the press is sure next morning to pat him on the back as though he had done a worthy deed.
