ent._)

No one who is interested in the possibilities of psycho-therapy
can view without serious misgiving recent tendencies in artistic
nomenclature. Some of us are old enough to remember when the trend
was in the direction of Italianisation; when FOLEY became SIGNOR FOLI;
CAMPBELL, CAMPOBELLO, and an American from Brooklyn was transformed
into BROCCOLINI. The vogue of alien aliases has passed, but it may
return, and it is to guard against the formidable and deleterious
results of its recrudescence that the following suggestions, are
propounded, not merely in the interests of Gongorism or of an
intensive cultivation of syncretic euphuism, but in accordance with
the most approved conclusions of psycho-analytic research.

It may be urged--and the objection is natural--that there can be
little danger of a relapse in view of the heroic and patriotic
adhesion of some of our most distinguished artists to their homely
patronymics. No doubt the noble example of CLARA BUTT and CARRIE TUBB
is fortifying and reassuring, and there are also clamant proofs that
denationalisation is no passport to eminence. But it would be foolish
to overlook the existence of powerful influences operating in an
antipodal direction. I confess to a feeling approaching to dismay when
I study the advertisement columns of the daily papers and note the
recurrence, in the announcements of impending concerts, of names of
a strangely outlandish and exotic form. In a single issue I have
encountered KRISH, ARRAU, KOUNS and DINH GILLY. The Christian names of
some of these eminent performers are equally momentous and perturbing,
_e.g._, JASCHA, KOFZA and UTT.

My grounds for perturbation are not imaginary or based on the
hallucinations of a hypersensitive mind. They are prompted and
justified by the notorious facts, established by the leading
psycho-analysts, that, just as mellifluous and melodious names
exercise a mollifying influence on the activities of the sub-conscious
self, so the possession or choice of strange or ferocious appellations
incites the bearer, if I may be permitted to use so commonplace a
term, to live up to his label.

It is therefore with all the force at my command that I entreat and
implore singers, players and dancers to think, not once but twice or
thrice, before they yield to the fascination of the unfamiliar and
adopt artistic pseudonyms calculated to intensify the "urges" of
their primitive instincts. It is not too much to say th