nd gambits and queer things contrived as
in a game. He was the player, and the audience was his
antagonist. Mr. Whiting was generally the easy conqueror. The
audience gave up the contest and admired the skill of the
musician.

"You respected the music of Mr. Whiting, but you did not feel
for it any personal affection. The music lacked humanity. Mr.
Whiting had, and no doubt has, high ideals. Sensuousness in
music seemed to him as something intolerable, something
against public morals, something that should be suppressed
by the selectmen. Perhaps he never went so far as to petition
for an injunction against sex in music; but rigorous
intellectuality was his one aim. He might have written A
Serious Call to Devout and Holy Composition, or A Practical
Treatise upon Musical Perfection, to which is now added, by
the same author, The Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage
Entertainment Fully Demonstrated.

"There was almost intolerance in Mr. Whiting's musical
attitude. He himself is a man of wit rather than humor, a man
with a very pretty knack at sarcasm. He is industrious,
fastidious, a severe judge of his own works. As a musician he
was even in his dryest days worthy of sincere respect.

"Now this fantasia is the outward and sure expression of a
change in Mr. Whiting's way of musical thinking, and the
change is decidedly for the better. There is still a display
of pure intellectuality; there is still a solving of
self-imposed problems; but Mr. Whiting's musical enjoyment is
no longer strictly selfish. Here is a fantasia in the true
sense of the term; form is here subservient to fancy. The
first movement, if you wish to observe traditional
terminology, is conspicuous chiefly for the skill, yes,
fancy, with which thematic material of no marked apparent
inherent value is treated. The pastorale is fresh and
suggestive. The ordinary pastorale is a bore. There is the
familiar recipe: take an oboe the size of an egg, stir it
with a flute, add a little piano, throw in a handful of
muted strings, and let the whole gently simmer in a 9-8
stew-pan. But Mr. Whiting has treated his landscape and
animal kingdom with rare discretion. The music gave pleasure;
it soothed by its quiet untortured beauty, its simplicity,
its discretion. And in like manner, without receiving or
d