Pray, “sweet, tender reader,” how long could you endure Mischa Elman playing the Minuet in G? [4] _Visions and Revisions, by John Cowper Powys._ [_G. Arnold Shaw, New York_] _And Pippa Dances_ Yet there are some who complain about the lack of musical devotion among Americans. Nay, music is getting absolutely too popular—witness the crowded concert-halls, especially the ten-cent-Sunday-concerts arranged by philanthropists for the uplift of the masses. It is significant to observe that the so-called Submerged have learned not only to applaud, but also to hiss, not only to accept with gratitude any sort of “divine” music, but to demand a certain kind of music. And, surely, they well know what they want. Hauptmann’s Huhn, the personification of the mob, wants the fragile Pippa, the symbol of beauty, to dance for him. She is forced to obey, and is of course crushed to death. And Pippa dances. That omnipotent Huhn who can call down all the muses to come and entertain him, to amuse him, to serve him, to degenerate or to perish! Watch that wonderful creature, the amalgamated American Huhn, making love to music, hugging and caressing her; I shudder at the thought of what will become of gentle Pippa in the choking embrace of her boorish suitor. Yes, Huhn knows what he wants. He expects of music the same service that he gets from illustrations in popular magazine novels. He comes into an ice-cream parlor and orders Banana-Split plus _William Tell_ on the victrola—so digestible and understandable. Last Sunday I observed a crowd at a ten-cent concert enjoying the _Meditation_, good-humoredly assisting the soloist by humming and whistling the familiar tune, their faces expressing the satisfaction of victors. And the night before I witnessed the thousands at Orchestra Hall, the Huhns in sweaters and in décolleté-gowns and in dress-suits, going mad over that vulgarity, Mr. Carpenter’s precise reproduction of barking dogs and of a policeman’s heavy walk. Huhn demands music which he is capable of interpreting in every-day terms, which transparently reflects his little emotions, his petty joys, his sirupy sorrows, his after-meal dreams. Is it to be wondered that Huhn hisses and grumbles when the conductor hesitatingly smuggles in such a risky novelty as Scriabin’s _Prometheus_? What is to Huhn the Poem in Fire, the emerging of a dazed humanity out of Chaos, the collision of gloom and light, the birth of the Winged Man? What is Hecuba to him! And since Pippa must dance, the obliging conductor hastens to appease the growling Huhn by the taffy of Bruch’s concerto.