other person who might, perchance, be capable of setting up a
proper example, has no room left. For these reasons I deem it
worth while to strip this spirit of reticence and shallow
pretence of the halo of sanctity with which it poses as the
"chaste spirit of German art." A poor and pretentious pietism at
present stifles every effort, and shuts out every breath of fresh
air from the musical atmosphere. At this rate we may live to see
our glorious music turned into a colourless and ridiculous bug-
bear!

I therefore think it advisable to take a straightforward survey
of this spirit, to look closely into its eyes, and to openly
assert that it has NOTHING in common with the true spirit of
German music. It is not easy to estimate the positive weight and
value of modern, Beethovenian, music--but we may perhaps hope to
get at some negative proof of its worth, by an examination of the
pseudo-Beethovenian-classicism now in the ascendant.

It is curious to note how the opposition to the things I advocate
finds vent in the press, where uneducated scribblers clamour and
create a disturbance, whilst in the profession proper, the
utterances are far from noisy, though sufficiently bitter. ("You
see he cannot express himself," a lady once said to me with a sly
glance at one of these reticent musicians). As I have said at the
outset this new musical Areopagus consists of two distinct
species: Germans of the old type, who have managed to hold out in
the South of Germany, but are now gradually disappearing; and the
elegant Cosmopolites, who have arisen from the school of
Mendelssohn in the North, and are now in the ascendant. Formerly
the two species did not think much of each other; but latterly,