habit of turning everything to account certainly does lead him to cast an inquisitive eye on every new manifestation of vitality.  I have seen him enthusiastic over la politique Lloyd-George, and I should not be in the least surprised if he found something in it to serve some one or other of his multifarious purposes.  If, however, surprise were what Picasso aimed at he could go a very much easier way about it.  He could do what his tenth-rate imitators try to do—­for instance, he could agreeably shock the public with monstrous caricatures and cubist photography—­those pictures, I mean, which the honest stockbroker recognizes, with a thrill of excitement at his own cleverness, as his favourite picture-postcards rigged out to look naughty.  But Picasso shows such admirable indifference to the public that you could never guess from his pictures that such a thing existed:  and that, of course, is how it should be.  He never startles for the sake of startling; neither does he mock.  Certainly, unlike the best of his contemporaries, he seems almost as indifferent to the tradition as he is to the public; but he no more laughs at the one than he tries to startle the other.  Only amongst the whipper-snappers of painting will you discover a will to affront tradition, or attract attention by deliberate eccentricity.  Only, I think, the Italian Futurists, their transalpine apes, a few revolutionaries on principle, but especially the Futurists with their electric-lit presentation of the more obvious peculiarities of contemporary life and their taste for popular actualities can be said definitely to have attempted a pictorial expression of Jazz.

On music, however, and literature its influence has been great, and here its triumphs are considerable.  It is easy to say that the genius of Stravinsky—­a musician, unless I mistake, of the first order and in the great line—­rises superior to movements.  To be sure it does:  so does the genius of Moliere.  But just as the genius of Moliere found its appropriate food in one kind of civilization, so does the genius of Stravinsky in another; and with that civilization his art must inevitably be associated.  Technically, too, he has been influenced much by nigger rhythms and nigger methods.  He has composed ragtimes.  So, if it is inexact to say that Stravinsky writes Jazz, it is true to say that his genius has been nourished by it.  Also, he sounds a note of defiance, and sometimes, I think, does evince a will to insult.  That he surprises and startles is clear; what is more, I believe he means to do it:  but tricks of self-advertisement are, of course, beneath so genuine an artist.  No more than Picasso does he seek small profits or quick returns; on the contrary, he casts his bread upon the waters with a finely reckless gesture.  The fact is, Stravinsky is too big to be covered by a label; but I think the Jazz movement has as much right to claim him for its own as any movement has to claim any first-rate artist.  Similarly, it