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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
Where do we stand? Whither are we going in our art? May we expect of it new revelations, a new circle of ideas, and a new phase of development; or what destiny awaits it in the further existence of nations?
To these questions we have been led by the contemplation of the present state of music.
But it may be asked: Are we, short-sighted mortals, able to penetrate the future? May not those apparitions which we persuade ourselves to be signs of the future turn out mere idle dreams, possibly to be convicted of their fallacy by the very next day, and laughed to scorn, with all their cares and hopes and preparations, by the bright splendour of to-morrow's rising sun?
I ask, in reply: Can we evade this question of the future? Is it possible for us, even if we had the wish, to confine our thoughts to that moment of time which we term the present; and which, whilst we are naming it, disappears already in the stream of the past; leaving us to the next moment of time, which just now belonged to the future, but has become present, until it shall have passed away as swiftly as the former? To him who labours, the future is an inseparable continuation of the present: his work of yesterday was intended for to-day, and continues to live, together with him and the work which this day has brought forth.
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