There exists a group, international in composition, which, above
all other contemporary bodies, arrogates to itself the style of
modernity. It is the group, tendrils of which reach into every great
capital and center, into every artistic movement and cause, of the bored
ones, the spoilt ones. The present system has lifted into a _quasi_
aristocratic and leisurely state vast numbers of people without
background, without tradition or culture or taste. By reason of its
largeness and resources, this group of people without taste, without
interest, without finesse, has come to dominate in particular the world
of art as the world of play, has come to demand distraction, sensation,
excitement which its unreal existence does not afford it. Indeed, this
band has come to give a cast to the whole of present-day life; its
members pretend to represent present-day culture. It is with this group
with its frayed sensibilities and tired pulses that Strauss has become
increasingly identified, till of late he has become something like its
court-musician, supplying it with stimulants, awaking its curiosities,
astonishing and exciting it with the superficial novelty of his works,
trying to procure it the experiences it is so lamentably unable to
procure itself.
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