y bodies, arrogates to itself the style of
modernity. It is the group, tendrils of which reach into every great
capital and center, into every artistic movement and cause, of the bored
ones, the spoilt ones. The present system has lifted into a _quasi_
aristocratic and leisurely state vast numbers of people without
background, without tradition or culture or taste. By reason of its
largeness and resources, this group of people without taste, without
interest, without finesse, has come to dominate in particular the world
of art as the world of play, has come to demand distraction, sensation,
excitement which its unreal existence does not afford it. Indeed, this
band has come to give a cast to the whole of present-day life; its
members pretend to represent present-day culture. It is with this group
with its frayed sensibilities and tired pulses that Strauss has become
increasingly identified, till of late he has become something like its
court-musician, supplying it with stimulants, awaking its curiosities,
astonishing and exciting it with the superficial novelty of his works,
trying to procure it the experiences it is so lamentably unable to
procure itself. It is for it that he created the trumpery horrors, the
sweet erotics of the score of "Salome." It is for it that he imitated
Mozart saccharinely in "Der Rosenkavalier"; mangled Moliere's comedy;
committed the vulgarities and hypocrisies of "Joseph's Legende." And did
no evidence roundly to the contrary exist, one might suppose this group
to really represent modern life; that its modernity was the only true
one; and that in expressing it, in conforming to it, Strauss was
functioning in the only manner granted the contemporary composer. But
since such evidence exists aplenty, since a dozen other musicians, to
speak only of the practitioners of a single art, have managed to keep
themselves immune and yet create beauty about them, to remain on the
plane upon which Strauss began life, to persevere in the direction in
which he was originally set, and yet live fully, one finds oneself
convinced that the deterioration of Strauss, which has made him musical
purveyor to this group, has not been the result of the pressure of
outward and hostile circumstances. One finds oneself positively
convinced that it was some inner weakness within himself that permitted
the spoilt and ugly folk to seduce him from his road, and use him for
their purposes.

And in the end it is as the victim