The _isolation_ of the dramatic and musical artist from his fellows generally is a great evil. Much that society complains of in the lives of artists would never exist but for this isolation, in spite of the fact that the artistic temperament is so moody and so impulsive, so little regardful of ordinary conventionalities. That it is so is partly the fault of society. It is quite true that because of journeying, rehearsals, etc., the travelling artist has little time to meet the members of the community in private life; but this state of things could be mitigated were society and the artists themselves convinced that for any class of people to live in little hives, wholly separated from their fellows, must be unfortunate for them and society. Artists as men and women are practically unknown to the world, though their false selves as represented by sensational paragraphs in newspapers are only too familiar to us. It may truly be said of the artist: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny." It is within the power of society to alter this, and it should do so. Why is it that actors and singers do not prepare themselves by as prolonged and thorough a vocal training as in a past time? Considering that there never was a period when there was the same scope for art, never a time when the public was so eager to hear and so able to pay for art, as now, never a period of such widespread intelligence on all subjects, music included, the question is a very pertinent one. We believe there are many factors underlying the technical decadence we must regret. The orchestra has greatly developed, choral singing is common in all countries, and the spirit of the times has changed. So analytical, so refined is our age, that singing sometimes becomes a sort of musical declamation, but, unfortunately, without that power to declaim possessed by the actors and often the opera-singers of a former period. A singer often attempts now to make up by an expressive reading of a song, for technical defects. We must all commend every evidence of intellectuality in music, but this does not imply that we should accept good intentions for execution--performance. Let us have every possible development of orchestral music; let every village have, if possible, its choral society, but let none enter it who have not been trained vocally. Out of the author's own experience he could a tale unfold of the evil done to the vocal organs by those who have sung in choirs without adequate vocal training. Choristers are tempted to reach high tones by a process of their own, without any regard to registers, and with corresponding effects on their throats, some of which imply also lasting injury to the voice itself.