A student of the times, Mr. E.S. Martin, shortly before the Spanish War, commented on the radical change that had come over the spirit of American self-regard. We were notorious in the earlier half of the century for boasting, not only of the virtues we indubitably had, but of qualities that existed solely in our own imagination. We sounded our barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. A century of almost unanimous European disapproval, particularly of our artistic estate, finally converted us from this attitude to one of deprecation almost abject. Having learned the habit of modesty, it has clung to us even now, when some of the foremost artists in the world are Americans.
Modesty, is, of course, one of the most beautiful of the virtues, but excess is possible and dangerous. As Shakespeare's Florio's Montaigne has it: "We may so seize on vertue, that if we embrace it with an over-greedy and violent desire, it may become vitious." In the case of the American composer it is certainly true that we "excessively demeane ourselves in a good action." If, then, the glory of our late successes in the field of battle shall bring about a recrudescence of our old vanity, it will at least have its compensations.
Meanwhile, the American artist, having long ago ceased to credit himself with all the virtues, has been for years earnestly working out his own salvation in that spirit of solemn determination which makes it proverbial for the American to get anything he sets his heart on. He has submitted himself to a devout study of the Old Masters and the New; he has made pilgrimage after pilgrimage to the ancient temples of art, and has brought home influences that cannot but work for good. The American painter has won more European acceptance than any of our other artists, though this is partly due to his persistence in knocking at the doors of the Paris salons, and gaining the universal prestige of admission there. There is, unfortunately, no such place to focus the attention of the world on a musician. Yet, through the success of American musical students among their rivals abroad; through the concerts they are giving more and more frequently in foreign countries; through the fact that a number of European music houses are publishing increasing quantities of American compositions, he is making his way to foreign esteem almost more rapidly than at home.
A prominent German critic, indeed, has recently put himself on record as accepting the founding of an American school of music as a fait accompli. And no student of the times, who will take the trouble to seek the sources of our art, and observe its actual vitality, need be ashamed of looking at the present state of music in America with a substantial pride and a greater hope for the future.
CHAPTER II.
THE INNOVATORS.
Edward Alexander MacDowell.
