It remains, now that we have traced the bearing of our general principles on musical taste, to point out briefly how they afford also criteria for judging composers themselves, and how, thus judged, the six composers we are to study fall into perspective. Our principles, in a word, will now enable us to supplement our later studies of these composers in isolation with a somewhat rough but still helpful sense of their interrelationship. We must relate them to the general evolution of which they are phases; see how they differ in the power to assimilate the work of their predecessors, to avail themselves of all the resources, expressive and formal, of their art, and to develop new resources for those who succeed them. It is hardly necessary to insist on the value of some such basis of comparison. Without it we should be like a certain member of a college geology class who, more ardent than methodical, was wont to investigate outcrops and moraines with great enthusiasm, but in utter ignorance of the points of the compass. To this scatter-brained young man the instructor used always to say, «Orient yourself first of all, Mr. Jones, orient yourself.» And so, before examining the individual outcroppings of modern music, we shall do well to orient ourselves in the artistic landscape.
Of all the composers with whom we are to deal, Grieg and Dvořák are the least inclusive and catholic. Grieg, as we shall see, writes always in the personal vein, is among musicians what Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb are among writers. He is intimate, charming, graceful, but never epic or universal. He touches the great stream of musical tradition at a few points only, and adds little to its volume. He knows how to combine a few elements of effect with finesse, but there are limitations both in what he has to say and in his means of saying it. He is familiar with only one dialect in the language of tones. And if Grieg is personal, Dvořák is at most national. He is too deep-dyed a Bohemian to be a complete citizen of the world. Not only is his style curiously provincial, with its uneven rhythms of folk-song, its strong dance-like metrical schemes, and its florid coloring, but his substance is too ornate and too sweet to be profoundly significant. He is a «natural» musician raised to the n^{ th} power, but he is not enough a scholar to relate himself very vitally with the general growth of his art. Both of these men have contributed much that is novel and charming to the lighter side of music, but they are not masters of deep feeling and wide scope.