ess pleasant enough at the time, smeared a terrible blot on the
future of art.

Now interpretative art is different. It depends upon the contemporary
individual, and some of its most thrilling effects may be entirely
accidental. Any traditions which persist in interpretative art must be
carried in the memory. In exceptional cases, of course, a singer, a
dancer, or an actor is able to so stamp his or her personal achievement
into the flowing rhythm of artistic space that a _style_ does persist.
We have a very good example before us in the case of Isadora Duncan, who
has been followed by a long train of animated Grecian urns. The
deleterious effect of this persistence of an interpretative tradition
must be apparent to any one. For the imitator of an interpreter is a
thousand times more futile than the imitator of a creator. Fortunately,
on the whole, styles in acting, in singing, and in dancing frequently
change. The Catalani-Jenny Lind-Patti tradition, which God knows has
hung on long enough, is nearly exhausted. We live in the age of the Mary
Garden tradition.

There is another and even better reason why I find it pleasant to write
about interpreters. In looking over the books on music written in the
past I find that the books about singers are infinitely more fascinating
than the books about composers. I am enthralled by what H. F. Chorley
has to say about Pauline Viardot and Henrietta Sontag; I am delighted
with the Goncourt's books about Guimard, Clairon, and Sophie Arnould.
Auguste Ehrhard's "Fanny Elssler" is an extraordinary document and one
cannot afford to miss P. T. Barnum on Jenny Lind and Mapleson on Patti.
But I find that the old scribes on Mozart and Mendelssohn, Beethoven and
Schubert, quite bore me, and it is impossible to say anything new about
these men. Books about Beethoven are still appearing but I advise nobody
to read them. The authors have arrived at that fine point where they can
only compare authorities and quibble about details. Was Beethoven in a
cold sweat when he composed the _Ninth Symphony_ or was he merely angry?
The ink on the manuscript of such and such a work being blotted on a
certain page, interest naturally arises as to whether the fifth note in
the sixteenth bar is F sharp or G flat. Did Haydn or Prince H---- conduct
the first performance of the _Symphony in X major_? Did Weber arrive in
England on Thursday or Friday? And so on. It is all very tiresome.

Sometimes I believe that