"AN age, like our own, wholly given over to the
Amission of industrial and political develop-
ment," writes Mr. Albert Jay Nock, ^* "is no doubt
unpropitious to creative work in the arts. It is one
thing, however, to recognize and acknowledge this
fact, and quite another thing to be overborne by it. It
is one thing to admit that classic work. . . . can be
produced but scantily and with great difficulty in such
an age, and quite another thing to say that it cannot be
produced at all; and obviously. . . . the effective
answer to those who say that classic work can not be
produced is to produce it. . . . Some one, in fact,
is always doing this; the dark ages are never quite
dark. Classic work is always being produced; and
by singling it out and calling attention to it wherever
it appears, one can always give encouragement and a
sense of direction to other artists, and thus fulfil the
first function of a critic."

Fortunately for music there have always been a few

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