ome,"
as Old Bill Byrne says, night overtakes him with half his chores undone.
Time gallops withal.

* * *

"They know what they like."

There are exceptions. The author of "Set Down in Malice" mentions a
number, the most conspicuous being Ernest Newman. And we recall an
exception, Mr. Jimmie Whittaker, merriest of critics, who was so far
from knowing what he liked that he adopted the plan, in considering the
Symphony concerts, of praising the even numbers one week and damning
the even numbers the following week.

* * *

Like Ernest Newman, we shall never again hear the Chopin Funeral March
without being reminded of Mr. Sidgwick's summary: "Most funeral marches
seem to cheer up in the middle and become gloomy again. I suppose the
idea is, (1) the poor old boy's dead; (2) well, after all, he's probably
gone to heaven; (3) still, anyhow, the poor old boy's dead."

* * *

Our readers, we swear, know everything. One of them writes from La
Crosse that Debussy's "Canope" has nothing to do with the planet
Canopus, but refers to the ancient Egyptian city of that name. Mebbe so
(we should like proof of it), but what of it?--as Nero remarked when
they told him Rome was afire. The Debussy music does as well for the
star as for the city. It is ethereal, far away, and it leaves off in
mid-air. There is a passage in "Orpheus and Eurydice" which is wedded to
words expressing sorrow; but, as has been pointed out, the music would
go as well or better with words expressing joy.

* * *

"Lincoln," observed Old Bill Byrne, inserting a meditative pencil in the
grinder, "said you can fool all the people some of the time. But that
was in the sixties, before the Colyum had developed a bunch of
lynx-eyed, trigger-brained, hawk-swooping, owl-pouncing fans that nobody
can fool for a holy minute."

* * *

Fishing for errors in a proof-room is like fishing for trout: the big
ones always get away. Or, as Old Bill Byrne puts it, while you're
fishing for a minnow a whale comes up and bites you in the leg.

* * *

Whene'er we take our walks abroad we meet acquaintances who view with
alarm the immediate future of the self-styled human race; but we find
ourself unable to share their apprehension. We do not worry about lead,
or iron, or any other element. And human nature is elemental. You can
flatten it, as in Russia; you ca