A man is not necessarily a master because he happened to compose two or three centuries ago. Let us beware of the worship of mere antiquity. America, the country of my heart, my second home. Art is great only when it bears the stamp of the individual.
Art is the expression of the immortal part of man.
Art must be a slow and normal evolution. Art without technique is invertebrate, shapeless, characterless. Chopin was an invalid, as you know, but his music was volcanic. Every new generation in its hour of dawn, filled with the dreams of youth, its thirsts, intoxications and enthusiasms, thinks itself called upon to impel humanity towards heights unmeasured, believes itself an appointed pathfinder, a thinker of thoughts, a doer of deeds greater than any of those which came before. Every new generation desires beauty, but a beauty all its own.