"A colour sense is more important in
the development of the individual than a sense of right and wrong."
Any young boy or girl can learn something about such matters; most of
them, if not shamed out of it, take a natural interest in their
surroundings. You will see how true this is if you attempt to
rearrange a child's room. Those who have bad taste, relatively, should
literally be allowed to make their own beds. On the whole it is
preferable to be comfortable in red and green velvet upholstery than
to be beautiful and unhappy in a household decorator's gilded cage.

_September 3, 1915._

Music and Supermusic

"_To know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not
you must see whether you find yourself looking at the
advertisements of Pears' soap at the end of the program._"

Samuel Butler.

Music and Supermusic

What is the distinction in the mind of Everycritic between good music
and bad music, in the mind of Everyman between popular music and
"classical" music? What is the essential difference between an air by
Mozart and an air by Jerome Kern? Why is Chopin's _G minor nocturne_
better music than Thecla Badarzewska's _La Priere d'une Vierge_? Why
is a music drama by Richard Wagner preferable to a music drama by
Horatio W. Parker? What makes a melody distinguished? What makes a
melody commonplace or cheap? Why do some melodies ring in our ears
generation after generation while others enjoy but a brief popularity?
Why do certain composers, such as Raff and Mendelssohn, hailed as
geniuses while they were yet alive, soon sink into semi-obscurity,
while others, such as Robert Franz and Moussorgsky, almost
unrecognized by their contemporaries, grow in popularity? Are there no
answers to these conundrums and the thousand others that might be
asked by a person with a slight attack of curiosity?... No one _does_
ask and assuredly no one answers. These riddles, it would seem, are
included among the forbidden mysteries of the sphynx. The critics
assert with authority and some show of erudition that the Spohrs, the
Mendelssohns, the Humperdincks, and the Montemezzis are great
composers. They usually admire the grandchildren of Old Lady Tradition
but they neglect to justify this partiality. Nor can we trust the
public with its favourite Piccinnis and Puccinis.... What then is the
test of supermusic?

For we know, as well as we can know anything, that there is