be necessary to Ornstein's genius. It is possible that he has had
to give up something in order to gain something else, to try for less in
order to establish himself upon a footing firmer than that upon which he
stood. His genius during his first years of creation was lyrical
purely. It was a thing that expressed itself in picturing moods, in
making brief flights, in establishing _moments musicaux._ He is at his
best in his piano preludes, in his small forms. The works composed
during this period in the larger forms, the violin sonata excepted, are
scarcely achieved. The outer movements of the Grand Sonata for
pianoforte, for instance, are far inferior to the central ones. Whatever
the merit of some of the individual movements of "The Masqueraders,"
Opus 36, and the "Poems of 1917," and at times it is not small, the
works as a whole lack form. They have none of the unity and variety and
solidity of the "Papillons" and the "Carnaval" of Schumann or the
"Valses nobles et sentimentales" of Ravel, for instance, works to which
they are in certain other respects comparable. As he grew a little
older, Ornstein's nature probably began to demand other forms beside
these smaller, more episodic ones. It probably began to strive for
greater scope, duration, development, complexity. And so, in order to
gain greater intellectual control over his outflow, to learn to build
piles of a bulk that require an entirely different workmanship and
supervision than do preludes and impressions, Ornstein doubtlessly has
been withholding himself, diminishing the intensity of his fire. In
order to learn to organize his material, he has doubtlessly
unconsciously lessened its density and vibrancy for the time being.

And, too, it may be the result of a change from a pain-economy to a
pleasure-economy. The adolescent has grown into the young man. The
adjustment may have been made. The poet is no longer forced to mint his
miseries and pains alone into art; he is learning to be glad. He may
again be seeking to find himself in a world grown different.

At the same time, there is a distinct possibility that the present
period of Ornstein's composition is not a time of preparation for a new
flight. There is a distinct possibility that it represents an
unwholesome slackening. After all, may it not be that he has flinched?
Stronger men than he have succumbed to a hostile world. And Ornstein has
found the world very hostile. He has found America absolutely u