Intelligentsia is one of those terms difficult to define, but easy to associate. It is logically blurred but emotionally vivid, sur­rounded with a halo, or rather several halos which overlap and vary according to period and place. One may list as examples the romantic salon; the professional middle classes; terroristic organiza­tions of students and aristocracy in the second half of nineteenth-century Russia; patriotic University Corps in post-Napoleonic Germany; the Bohemians of Montmartre, and so on. There are also evocative geographical names like Bloomsbury, Montparnasse, and Cagnes; and certain typical attitudes to life including clothing, hair-fashion, drink and food. The aura […]

Cold mist had lain all the day through—breaking with vestiges of sunlight and sudden sights of snow as we left the sheepyards—but now enfolding us entirely with thick, damp touch. The breath of the three horses steamed, mist-blending. Hooves trotting, squelched up the old track traversing the hillside to Towong house on the point above the flats. Through the gate by the line of oaks—cold hands undid the chain that chinked on the metal bar—and there was strange sunglitter in the mist on the bare hilltop above us and then redgold on the flaming oak boughs. But mist wound wet […]

Until recently music has been largely an imported commodity. Most of our musical life centred round the visits to this country of artists from abroad. In other words, it was imposed on, rather than growing within, the community. In order to clarify the present situation, when we are being thrown back entirely on our own resources, let us examine the change that has taken place. For this purpose I bracket all visiting artists, although, naturally, they have differed vastly in the amount each has contributed to musical life here. The fact remains, however, that we have depended on them for […]