g the characters. I wonder," he continued
musingly, as we left the room, and descended the stairs, "if he told
you whether that hair on Paul's chest was red or black...."

_February 1, 1915._

The Authoritative Work on
American Music

The Authoritative Work on American Music

H. L. Mencken pointed out to me recently, in his most earnest and
persuasive manner, that it was my duty to write a book about the
American composers, exposing their futile pretensions and describing
their flaccid _opera_, stave by stave. It was in vain that I urged
that this would be but a sleeveless errand, arguing that I could not
fight men of straw, that these our composers had no real standing in
the concert halls, and that pushing them over would be an easy
exercise for a child of ten. On the contrary, he retorted, they
belonged to the academies; certain people believed that they were
important; it was necessary to dislodge this belief. I suggested, with
a not too heavily assumed humility, that I had already done something
of the sort in an essay entitled "The Great American Composer." "A
good beginning," asserted Col. Mencken, "but not long enough. I won't
be satisfied with anything less than a book." "But if I wrote a book
about Professors Parker, Chadwick, Hadley, and the others I could find
nothing different to say about them; they are all alike. Neither
their lives nor their music offer opportunities for variations." "An
excellent idea!" cried Major Mencken, enthusiastically, "Write one
chapter and then repeat it verbatim throughout the book, changing only
the name of the principal character. Then clap on a preface,
explaining your reason for this procedure." My last protest was the
feeblest of all: "I can't spend a year or a month or a week poring
over the scores of these fellows; I can't go to concerts to hear their
music. I might as well go to work in a coal mine." "I'll do it for
you!" triumphantly checkmated General Mencken. "I'll read the scores
and you shall write the book!" And so he left me, as on a similar
occasion the fiend, having exhibited his prospectus, vanished from the
eyes of our Lord. And I returned to my home sorely troubled, finding
that the words of the man were running about in my head like so many
little Japanese waltzing mice.

And, after much cogitation, I went to such and such a book case and
took down a certain volume written by Louis Charles Elson (a very
large red tome) and another by