PART II
Why Bohemian music or Czech music or Slovak music or Czechoslovak music? Does there exist any nationality in music?
Every nation, with its mother-tongue, its
peculiar customs, its distinct mode of life,
varies more or less in form of culture from all
other nations. The differences of geographical
positions, racial inclinations, and inborn tem-
per influence all departments of life—even
Art. "No man can quite emancipate himself
from his age and country or produce a model
in which the education, the religion, the poli-
tics, usages, and arts of his times shall have
no share. He cannot wipe out of his work every
trace of his thoughts amidst which it grew.
Above his will and out of his sight he is neces-
sitated by the air he breathes and the idea
on which he and his contemporaries live and
toil, to share the manner of his times, without
knowing what that manner is." (Emerson.)
And as a man cannot escape from his own
