Albert Kinross

“ To Merceron fate was even kinder. London was brand-new, and their dinner an initiation. The string-band that discoursed behind a bank of flowers from the gallery at the restaurant's further end was as something celestial by mere virtue of its exalted position. The waiters in black and gold with silk stockings were Ganymedes, and the swiftly-served courses nectar and ambrosia. To Hutchinson, unafflicted as he was with a classical training, the service was but a luxury, while Merceron deemed it one of the Arts. ”

“ Merceron's blinking was a pleasurable movement of unaccustomed eyelids.
They dined expensively at the newest thing in restaurants and drank champagne, Hutchinson leading. The sailor's visits to the metropolis were akin to those of the angels; and when he came, he did things in style, and thought them over when aboard his ship. And Hutchinson invariably contrived that these thoughts should be pleasant ones. Opportunity denied him the luxury of enjoyments that stale from habit or constant repetition, and, to Hutchinson, London was always new though never varying. ”

“ And yet it is to Hutchinson even more than to Harvey Merceron's self that we owe that one masterpiece—the precursor, let us hope, of many—which has redeemed our operatic composers, British music in general, from the charge of insignificance. Before the advent of Hutchinson, British music was, relatively speaking, a negligible quantity. But now, Hutchinson has passed, and the ears of the civilised world strain hopefully towards London. ”