such material which lay in books waiting for him, it is
surprising that he did not take more advantage of it. In the main he
has relied on his own cleverness to delight our ears for two hours
with brilliant conversation.

There is, it should be noted, in conclusion, nothing essentially
American about either of these young authors. Both Mr. Hopwood and
Mr. Moeller might have written for the foreign stage. Several of Mr.
Hopwood's pieces, indeed, have already been transported to foreign
climes and there seems every reason for belief that Mr. Moeller's
comedy will meet a similarly happy fate.

_November 29, 1917._

De Senectute Cantorum

_"All'eta di settanta
Non si ama, ne si canta."_

Italian proverb.

De Senectute Cantorum

"I am not sure," writes Arthur Symons in his admirable essay on Sarah
Bernhardt, "that the best moment to study an artist is not the moment
of what is called decadence. The first energy of inspiration is gone;
what remains is the method, the mechanism, and it is that which alone
one can study, as one can study the mechanism of the body, not the
principle of life itself. What is done mechanically, after the heat of
the blood has cooled, and the divine accidents have ceased to happen,
is precisely all that was consciously skilful in the performance of an
art. To see all this mechanism left bare, as the form of a skeleton is
left bare when age thins the flesh upon it is to learn more easily all
that is to be learnt of structure, the art which not art but nature
has hitherto concealed with its merciful covering."

Mr. Symons, of course, had an actress in mind, but his argument can be
applied to singers as well, although it is safest to remember that
much of the true beauty of the human voice inevitably departs with the
youth of its owner. Still style in singing is not noticeably affected
by age and an artist who possesses or who has acquired this quality
very often can afford to make lewd gestures at Father Time. If good
singing depended upon a full and sensuous tone, such artists as
Ronconi, Victor Maurel, Max Heinrich, Ludwig Wullner, and Maurice
Renaud would never have had any careers at all. It is obvious that any
true estimate of their contribution to the lyric stage would put the
chief emphasis on style, and this is usually the explanation for
extended success on the opera or concert stage, although occasionally
an extraordinary and excep