Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/111

 art, as in almost every sphere of human life, a deadly war is waged by each successive generation round the traditional legacies of its predecessor. In this warfare the odds are always heavily in favour of the assailant. Only that tradition which carries the seed of young vitality can persist. For it is obvious that tradition needs for its complete process not only the faculty of handing down, but also the grace of being received, so that we may almost take it as an axiom that the worth of any tradition is nicely proportionate to its ability to attract the allegiance, or at least the active interest,