precisely, the simplicity consists;
it has striking individuality,--yet the particular trait in which it
resides is not easily determined. The simplicity is certainly not of
the harmonic plan, nor of the melodic outline, which are subtly yet
frankly conceived; and the individuality does not lie in any
eccentricity or determined novelty of effect. Both the flavour of
simplicity and of personality are, one concludes, more a spiritual
than an anatomical possession of the music. Its quality is as
intangible and pervasive as that dim magic of "unremembering
remembrance" that is awakened in some by the troubling tides of
spring; it is apparently as unsought for as are the naive utterances
of folk-song. It is his unfailing charm, and it is everywhere manifest
in his later work: that spontaneity and _insouciance_, that utter
absence of self-consciousness, which is in nothing so surprising as in
its serene antithesis to what one has come to accept--too readily, it
may be--as the dominant accent of musical modernity.

These pieces have an inescapable fragrance, tenderness, and zest. "To
a Wild Rose," "Will o' the Wisp," "In Autumn," "From Uncle Remus," and
"By a Meadow Brook" are slight in poetic substance, though executed
with charm and humour; but the five other pieces--"At an Old Trysting
Place," "From an Indian Lodge," "To a Water-lily," "A Deserted Farm,"
and "Told at Sunset"--are of a different calibre. With the exception
of "To a Water-lily," whose quality is uncomplex and unconcealed,
these tone-poems in little are a curious blend of what, lacking an
apter name, one must call nature-poetry, and psychological suggestion;
and they are remarkable for the manner in which they focus great
richness of emotion into limited space. "At an Old Trysting Place,"
"From an Indian Lodge," "A Deserted Farm," and "Told at Sunset," imply
a consecutive dramatic purpose which is emphasised by their connection
through a hint of thematic community. The element of drama, though, is
not insisted upon--indeed, a large portion of the searching charm of
these pieces lies in their tactful reticence.

In the "Sea Pieces" of op. 55 a larger impulse is at work. The set
comprises eight short pieces, few of them over two pages in length;
yet they are modelled upon ample lines, and they have, in a
conspicuous degree, that property to which I have alluded--the
property of suggesting within a limited framework an emotional or
dramatic content of large and