her the color part is bound eventually to
drive out the local part or the local drive out all color. Here a
process of cancellation or destruction is going on--a kind of
"compromise" which destroys by deadlock; a compromise purchasing a
selfish pleasure--a decadence in which art becomes first dull, then
dark, then dead, though throughout this process it is outwardly very
much alive,--especially after it is dead. The same tendency may even be
noticed if there is over-insistence upon the national in art. Substance
tends to create affection; manner prejudice. The latter tends to efface
the distinction between the love of both a country's virtue and vices,
and the love of only the virtue. A true love of country is likely to be
so big that it will embrace the virtue one sees in other countries and,
in the same breath, so to speak. A composer born in America, but who
has not been interested in the "cause of the Freedmen," may be so
interested in "negro melodies," that he writes a symphony over them. He
is conscious (perhaps only subconscious) that he wishes it to be
"American music." He tries to forget that the paternal negro came from
Africa. Is his music American or African? That is the great question
which keeps him awake! But the sadness of it is, that if he had been
born in Africa, his music might have been just as American, for there
is good authority that an African soul under an X-ray looks identically
like an American soul. There is a futility in selecting a certain type
to represent a "whole," unless the interest in the spirit of the type
coincides with that of the whole. In other words, if this composer
isn't as deeply interested in the "cause" as Wendell Phillips was, when
he fought his way through that anti-abolitionist crowd at Faneuil Hall,
his music is liable to be less American than he wishes. If a
middle-aged man, upon picking up the Scottish Chiefs, finds that his
boyhood enthusiasm for the prowess and noble deeds and character of Sir
Wm. Wallace and of Bruce is still present, let him put, or try to put
that glory into an overture, let him fill it chuck-full of Scotch
tunes, if he will. But after all is said and sung he will find that his
music is American to the core (assuming that he is an American and
wishes his music to be). It will be as national in character as the
heart of that Grand Army Grandfather, who read those Cragmore Tales of
a summer evening, when that boy had brought the cows home without
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