Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/112

Rh of the most important individuals of the new generation.

Oddly enough, the said important individuals are often just those who apparently owe least to what has gone before. The humdrum student follows his teacher with all the reverence that is fit. But your dominant force is always something of an anarchist. Whence arises that disrepute in which tradition is held by the coteries who are usually too prone to be led away by the false glamour of appearance or their own conceit.

As a matter of fact, if a novel work of art possesses any qualities of real virtue, tradition, we may be sure, is at the bottom of it. For tradition can act very subtly, so subtly that its influence may long remain undetected, and then at last be only generally perceived through the revealing perspective of time. This is the 76