them, for Strauss, at any rate, to my mind, has never been a whit superior as a composer to such a man as Liszt. In Paris, in 1913, I heard Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps and a good deal more of this Russian's music. I wrote a panegyric about Le Sacre du Printemps in my first book,[1] published in 1915. In 1924, Le Sacre du Printemps has at last been performed in New York and the critics have at last accepted Stravinsky. So, indeed, apparently, have the conductors who, until the past four years, hardly ever permitted his name to be emblazoned on their programs. The job of music critic in New York, therefore, is certainly not an ideal occupation for a man with imagination and foresight.
I might further urge that there were economic reasons for my shift of professions, for I realized but small sums of silver from this great outlay of labour. My stipend from the newspapers for which I worked was decidedly modest; the several volumes of criticism which I published, while encomiastically reviewed (Henry Mencken hailed even my first book with delight, seeing in it possibly, as did Peter Whiffle, the germ of future achievement), enjoyed but a small sale. Most of them, indeed, were "remaindered." I doubt if any one makes money out of music criticism. The late James Huneker, as prominent an
