raining this wonder upon us, history at once poured down
a greater. One morning we awoke to find a new and still vaster medium
of expression, a medium whose globe-girdling voice was to that of the
five-million reader magazine as the roar of Niagara to the roar of a
Philadelphia trolley-car. To-day, from wherever civilized man has
obtained even a temporary foothold, there arise without ceasing the
accents of mechanical music, which talk persuasively to all in a
language so universal that even the beasts understand it and cock
applauding ears at the sound of the master voice. So that, while the
magazine writers now address the million, the composers and singers
and players make their bows to the billion.

Their omnipresence is astonishing. They are the last to bid you
farewell when you leave civilization. They are the first to greet you
on your return. When I canoed across the wild Allagash country, I was
sped from Moosehead Lake by Caruso, received with open arms at the
halfway house by the great-hearted Plancon, and welcomed to Fort Kent
by Sousa and his merry men. With Schumann-Heinck, Melba, and
Tetrazzini I once camped in the heart of the Sierras. When I persisted
to the uttermost secret corner of the Dolomites, I found myself
anticipated by Kreisler and his fiddle. They tell me that the portly
Victor Herbert has even penetrated with his daring orchestra through
darkest Africa and gone on to arrange a special benefit, in his home
town, for the dalai-lama of Tibet.

One of the most promising things about mechanical music is this: No
matter what kind of music or quality of performance it offers you,
you presently long for something a little better--unless your
development has been arrested. It makes small difference in this
respect which one of the three main varieties of instrument you happen
to own. It may be the phonograph. It may be the kind of automatic
piano which accurately reproduces the performances of the master
pianists. It may be the piano-player which indulgently supplies you
with technic ready-made, and allows you to throw your own soul into
the music, whether you have ever taken lessons or not. Or it may be a
combination of the last two. The influence of these machines is
progressive. It stands for evolution rather than for devolution or
revolution.

Often, however, the evolution seems to progress by sheer accident.
This is the way the accident is likely to happen. Jones is buying
records for the fam