to
destruction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop
the contention that only a musician is entitled to criticise a
musician, and without abating one jot of his requirements as to
knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad-mindedness, candor, and
incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish
claim that to pronounce upon the excellence of a ragout one must be
able to cook it; if he will not go farther he must, at least, go with
the elder D'Israeli to the extent of saying that "the talent of
judgment may exist separately from the power of execution." One need
not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a composer before
he can discuss his productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all
the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon
effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them
through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a
chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a
composition falls to him, he approaches it on its technical side. Yet
music is of all the arts in the world the last that a mere pedant
should discuss.

But if not a mere pedant, then neither a mere sentimentalist.

[Sidenote: _Intelligence versus emotionalism._]

"If I had to choose between the merits of two classes of
hearers, one of whom had an intelligent appreciation of
music without feeling emotion; the other an emotional
feeling without an intelligent analysis, I should
unhesitatingly decide in favor of the intelligent
non-emotionalist. And for these reasons: The verdict of the
intelligent non-emotionalist would be valuable as far as it
goes, but that of the untrained emotionalist is not of the
smallest value; his blame and his praise are equally
unfounded and empty."

[Sidenote: _Personal equation._]

[Sidenote: _Exact criticism._]

So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I
uttered a warning in the introductory chapter of this book, when I
called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be primarily a
desire to present himself as a person of unusually exquisite
sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a
want of knowledge, and, I fancy, sometimes also because ill-equipped
critics have persuaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what
the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music affects
them