And so in the case of Bauer you are made to realize that the piano is the thing, even more than the music that is to be played on it—far more than the stunts that can be done with it. I believe he says something to this effect: that the piano is the only instrument for which no technique is demanded; and “How, if I were to practice all day, could I possibly play at night?” I know that he has no use for the agonizing drill of even the greatest teachers of the piano. You can imagine him asking “Is there any longer any meaning in that? Does the sound of it _interest_ you?” You can get any effect you want, on the piano, if you can think clearly what effect you want. You needn’t practise six months to achieve a chord in which the middle note sings louder than the other two: strike it the fraction of a second before the other two and the sound will be what you are listening for. In January I heard his Modern Program in Chicago, and it was the most beautiful performance on the piano I ever dreamed of hearing. The other day in Aeolian Hall he and Casals gave a joint recital, in which Bauer played the Schumann _Papillons_ as his solo. In almost every measure of it you could hear effects attained by the kind of thinking I have described—marvelous values that can be offered only by one who can conceive greatly. But I heard musicians in the audience saying that they couldn’t discover any new thing in this music. Casals is very close to the soul of music, of course; but sometimes his mastery of the instrument is unrelated to its best beauty. His playing seems not to be built solidly on the beauty of sound; while with Bauer the emphasis is always on sound—which means merely this: that an interesting and compact phrasing made out of thin or harsh sound is as worthless as beautiful tunes played on a worn-out piano. How I love these concerts of his in which you need never think of the magic of finger-tips—“the hand the perfect instrument”, etc., etc., because of long patient years of diabolical muscular exercise. Once I believe I said that Harold Bauer was not a genius. It must have been in that period when I thought that the genius carries around with him always the look of being submerged in great emotions. I know now that he is probably _the_ genius of our world—the man who has made something entirely of his own, and something that will live not only as a tradition of great piano-playing but as a great invention of new sound. And— jh. _The War, Madmen!_ Honor: Speculations in misery, forced famines, sweat shops, child labor, suppression of free speech, leaks, lynchings, frame-ups, prisons.... Protection: Millions for munitions: Starvation for millions.... Justice: The death sentence for no crime and without trial: Conscription..... Freedom: The right to be free: Prison.... Glory: