more difficult to see music steadily and see it whole, and it is useful
to take stock of our position. Our musical minds are very much broader
than they were: in that sense we can well, like the heroes of Homer,
boast that we are much better than our fathers. But are they also
deeper? We have gained access to many new rooms in the house of art,
rooms full of strange and beautiful things, for the knowledge of which
we must needs be profoundly and lastingly grateful; but some of the
rooms seem rather small and their windows do not seem to have been
opened very often, while others seem liable to be swept by hurricanes
which upset the furniture right and left. Veterans there are, musicians
not to be named except with high honour, who fall back for nutriment on
the great classics and pessimism; but our notions of beauty cannot stand
still, and in all ages of music one of the most vital tasks of criticism
has been to distinguish between the relatively non-beautiful which has
character and truth and its superficial imitation which has neither. All
musicians very well recollect their first bewilderment at what has
afterwards become as clear as daylight. But we must retain our standards
of judgement. We have no right to criticize without familiarity, but we
must remember that over-familiarity, mere dulled habitual acceptance,
means equal incapacity for criticism. If, after trying our utmost, we
still cannot see any sense in some of these modernist pages, there is no
reason why we should not say so; it is quite possible that there really
is no sense in them, and that the composer is perfectly aware of the
fact. Odd stories float about the artistic world. And if the anarchists
call us philistines and the philistines call us anarchists, it is fairly
likely that we are seeing things pretty much as they are.

Moreover, it is worth remembering that a good deal of what is loosely
called modernism is in reality very much the reverse. There is nothing
progressive in the confusion of processes with principles, in the
breathless disregard of the larger issues. Take the ideal of 'direct
expression of emotion', the attempt to give, as Pater said half a
century ago, 'the highest quality to our moments as they pass and simply
for those moments' sake'. Musically, it is a return to the childhood of
our race, to the natural savage. If a musical composition is to consist
of anything more than one isolated noise, it must inevitably have a form
of s