It may be mentioned as illustrating still further, the false
tendencies in music, that it takes a brave man to ask for a sweet,
simple song. I tried it the other night. I asked a Flora McFlimsey
to give us "Way down upon the Swanee River." The words, it will be
remembered, are singularly pure, sweet and pathetic.
Many of the Italian songs just now so fashionable, are couched in
language, listened to by pure-minded people, only because they don't
understand it.
When I said, "Please sing 'Way down upon the Swanee River,'" Miss
McFlimsey replied, "Excuse me, I never sing that class of music. I
haven't sung one of those simple airs, I don't know when." I know,
by the way the girls looked at me, that their respect for my musical
taste vanished at once and forever. If I had asked her for "Ah, que
j'aime les militaire," or "Une Paule sur la mur," insufferable
trash, both as to music and words, utterly beneath contempt, she
would have eagerly screamed the bald bosh, and the weak ones would
have declared it ineffably exquisite.*