SPIRIT AND MUSIC

 _By the same Author_

 NERVE CONTROL SELF TRAINING A BOOK OF AUTO-SUGGESTIONS THE INFLUENCE OF THOUGHT A MANUAL OF HYPNOTISM THE HIDDEN SELF POINTS ON PRACTISING

Spirit and Music

BY

H. ERNEST HUNT

Author of Nerve Control, Self Training, &c, &c. ;Lecturer in Psychology at the Training School forMusic Teachers, The Metropolitan Academy ofMusic, The Kensington School of Music, &c. , London

LONDON:KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. , LTD. J. CURWEN & SONS, LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1922

Printed in Great Britain by St. Stephen's Printing Works, Bristol. 

CONTENTS

CHAP. 

I THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC

II THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN LIFE

III THE EXPRESSION OF LIFE

IV SPIRIT A LIVING FACT

V THE CONDITIONS OF INSPIRATION

VI THE INTERPRETER

VII THE TEACHER

VIII THE SOUL OF SONG

IX MUSIC AND EDUCATION

X THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT

XI "PURE MUSIC"

XII THE PURPOSE OF ART

SPIRIT AND MUSIC

CHAPTER I

THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC

"Art is the Manifestation of the Spiritual by means of theMaterial"

Newlandsmith

Music is a part of life. It is not merely an accomplishment or a hobby, nor yet a means of relaxation from the strenuous business of earning aliving. It is not an addendum or an excrescence: it is an actual part ofthe fabric of life itself. The object of these pages will be to show howclosely Music, and indeed Art in general, has woven itself into thepattern of our lives, and how intimately it may influence and fashionthe design. 

The structural basis of Music is vibration. Sound comes to us in theguise of air-waves, which impinge upon the drum of the ear. Thenerve-impulse thus aroused is conveyed to the brain, and theretranslated into sound. Strictly speaking there is thus no sound untilthe brain translates the message, while if the machinery of the ear betoo dull to answer to the vibration the sound simply does not exist forus. Beyond doubt the world is full of sounds that we cannot hear and ofsights that we never see, for of the whole range of vibration our sensespermit us to garner but the veriest fragment--a few notes here of sound, and a brief range there of sight, out of the whole vast scale of vibrantNature. 

There are sounds which are musical, and others that are raucous and merenoise. The difference lies in the fact that harsh sounds are compoundedof irregular vibrations, while the essence of Music is that its wavesare rhythmic and follow each other in ordered swing. Rhythm is thus theprimary manifestation of Music: but equally so it is the basiccharacteristic of everything in life. We learn that in Nature there isnothing still and inert, but that everything is in incessant motion. There is no such thing as solid matter. The man of Science resolvedmatter into atoms, and now these atoms themselves are found to be asminiature universes. Round a central sun, termed a Proton, whirl anumber of electrons in rhythmic motion and incessant swing. And theseelectrons and protons--what are they? Something in the nature of chargesof electricity, positive and negative. So where is now ourseeming-solid matter?

When this knowledge informs our outlook we see that all that lives, moves: and even that which never seems to move, lives also in continualrhythm and response. The eternal hills are vibrant to the eye ofscience, and the very stones are pulsing with the joy of life. Thecountryside sings, and there is the beat of rhythm not merely in ourhearts but in every particle of our body. Stillness is a delusion, andimmobility a fiction of the senses. Life is movement and activity, andrigidity and stiffness come more near to what we understand as death. Yet even in death there is no stillness, there is but a change in theform of activity. The body is no longer alive as an organised community, but in its individual cells: the activity is the liveliness ofdecomposition. Thus all the world expresses life, and expresses it in arhythm in which law and order reign supreme, and in which a sweet andsane regularity is the ordinance. 

Regular rhythm involves accent. Whether or no there be any such emphasisas a thing in itself, the listening ear supplies it to meet a need. Whenwe attend to a clock ticking, the tick-tock, tick-tock, however even itmay sound at first, soon resolves itself into a rhythm with the accenton either the tick or the tock. So does the beat of an engine, or thehum of a railway train, merge itself into some definite sound picture, with the accent for relief that the ear demands. Thus out of rhythmgrows very naturally an accentuation which gives balance, structure, andform. We start with the little units--the ticks and the tocks--and webuild something bigger by grouping these together. This is a principlewhich we may see running through the activities of life in a thousandforms. 

Bricks are made to pattern and thus possess a rhythm of their own, butwhen they are laid in courses they merge their individual rhythm intothe ordered lines of the courses. These again may be comprehended inlarger units of arches, buttresses, and stories: and all these againwill be grouped and contained in this or that style of architecture. So, too, Music may begin with notes and tones, but accent quickly groupsthese into larger units to satisfy the senses in their demand forbalance and proportion. Thus by increasing the size of our unit we buildthe rhythm of form and lay the foundation for the further development ofthe Art. 

Since Nature is regular, from the beating of our own hearts to the swingof universes in the heavens, therefore engrained in our very selves isthis claim for ordered progression, balance, and sustained sequence. When we attain this, whether in Music or otherwise, we derive a measureof restfulness and satisfaction and we gain a sense of completeness. Anywork of Art should leave us with this conviction, that nothing could beadded or left out without marring the perfect proportion of the whole. "Jazz, " whether in Music or in any other direction, gives just the veryopposite effect, marring the sense of proportion and distorting thefeeling of satisfaction. It exists as a testimony to a morbiddissatisfaction with life, it gives emphasis to the unbalanced andneurotic. The true beauty of Art--as of Music--consists on the contraryof this larger rhythm which makes for wholesomeness and proportion, which achieves at once the rest and the satisfaction that the soulcraves. Its wholesomeness is health, which again is ease. Its reverse isdisease: and when Music becomes mere noise and discord it is the same aswhen beauty becomes ugliness and health vanishes in sickness. 

The second element of Music is melody, and this corresponds to theoutline in Nature. Things have their shapes and their forms, even as ourvery lives consist of ups and downs, varied with occasional runs alongthe level. The country has its outlines, its hills that rise and climb, its valleys that fall and fade. There is the even line of the horizon, topped by the swelling clouds: there are curves and sweeps in theswaying of trees and grasses, in the flight of birds, and in the graceof the human form. It is significant that Nature's handiwork so aboundsin curves, whilst that of man is fashioned so much upon straight lineswith consequent sharp points and angles. Is it not obvious that Art hashad but scanty share in designing our towns and manufactories? Rightangles, no doubt, stand for utility in a commercial age, but Nature withher longer purview has little use for them and prefers a more roundedway of progress. Nature inspires, but not in square-cut periods. It is asafe plan to turn to Nature, as to the diagram of God, if we findourselves in any doubt as to the way. 

"Let your air be good, and your composition will be so likewise, andwill assuredly delight, " says tuneful Father Haydn, and Music's outlinein melody limns, as does that of Nature, the beauty of her design. Itspeaks of wood or stream, of billowed sky, and now of sombre shadow. Itripples in dainty dance, or tumbles down in cascades of joy. Music'smelody vies with the drive and bluster of the wind, sobbing andsighing, whistling round corners and playing pranks. Then, maybe, itsinks to silence, and the white mist creeps up: and now there is nomelody, no outline, but just the one still sameness over all. 

We live in a three dimensional world, and in its length, breadth, andsolidity do we disport ourselves. Music also has its three-fold mannerof expression, its rhythm, its melody, and now its harmony. The rhythmis for balance, the melody for the outline, while the harmonyconstitutes the texture. Here again in other directions we may trace thesame essentials: there is a texture of colouring, a style in Literature, and an appropriate technique for harmony in every branch of Art, just asthere is an harmonic scheme in Music. This may be airy, light, andgossamer, or turgid and obscure: it may be commonplace or ponderous. Like Nature, it may have a thousand or a myriad shades to mirror as manymoods and tenses. It may have the misty filminess of steam, the limpiddeeps of water, or the cold weight and icy dullness of pompousignorance. 

See how Nature harmoniously groups her colour scheme, with a master handensuring that nothing shall clash or be inappropriate. Into this schemeshe introduces the song of birds and the sighing of the breeze, withperhaps in the dull distance the roar of the sea growling away andrefusing to be driven from its obstinate pedal bass. Into our life shebrings affection rose-colour, and for openness and truth the blue of thesky. She paints hatred dark, and passion fiery. Energy she portrays asred, and purity white. Could we but see ourselves in this colour-schemewe should realise that, like God's fresh air, all should be clear andbright, but we ourselves pollute the design with the smoke of our owndesires. 

So the musician to-day takes the theme that has been given to him by thehigh gods, for "the idea in embryo comes from a Higher Power"[1] andpaints in and accompanies it with such harmonies as his soul may soundand his technique record. He has Nature for pattern, and he may do whathe will so long as, Nature-like, there is life expressing itself. Everything in the world stands for something, as even the hills standfor pulsing life. As within, so without: the outer semblance is neverthe real thing, but ever stands as a mirror to the inner. The birdsings, but he is ever expressing his soul in song: it is only the humansinger who can utter sounds without significance. Music is never merenotes, never sound alone, but always the outer form as the expressionand unfoldment of something deeper. Rhythm, melody, and harmony aresimply the three-fold means of expression, both of the musician and ofMother Nature. Of the two, Nature makes the better Music, being closerto the heart of God. 

[Note 1: Macpherson. "Music and its Appreciation. "]

CHAPTER II

THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN LIFE

"Music is not merely a matter for the cultured: it is inextricablybound up in the bundle of common life"

_Scholes_

Music, as we have seen, is implanted in the very nature of things, andit is as deeply embedded in our lives. Was there ever a time when no mansang? As a matter of evolutionary accuracy, yes, there probably was sucha time. But, looking at it in a commonsense way the answer is No. To-daywe find that savages and aborigines, who are still in the childhoodstage of evolution, are immensely susceptible to the sway of rhythm, andin their weird dances to the beating of the Tom-toms accompany theirantics with a crooning or chanting, which no doubt to them stands in theplace of song. 

Was there ever a mother who did not croon to her fretful child, and whodid not rock her babe to sleep with rhythmic lullaby? Song spans thegap from mother Eve to the mother of to-day: the song may vary, thoughthe emotion of the mother-love remains the same. This crooning, with itselement of soothing monotony, it is interesting to note is distinctlyhypnotic in its effect, for the sleep of hypnosis is definitely inducedby monotonous stimulation of any of the senses. The rocking and crooningon the part of the mother are quite akin, though unconsciously so, tothe approved scientific methods. It is also curious that the nature ofthe monotonous stimulation does not seem to matter very much, for thereis a case on record where a doctor hypnotised a patient by reciting tohim in a low voice a few verses of "The Walrus and the Carpenter. " Thepsycho-analysts would probably say that the patient went to sleep inself-defence. We can well remember how we were lulled to sleep inearliest days to the following somewhat fearsome and original words sungto the tune of a popular hymn:--

 "Bye, bye, bye, bye, Horse, pig, cow, sheep, Rhinoceros, donkey, cat: Dog, dickie, hippopotamus, Black-beetle, spider, rat. "

From which it appears evident that the actual words used as a soporificallow considerable latitude of choice. 

No doubt Pan piped, and the Nymphs danced to his music in their woodlandgroves, much as the poor kiddies in the slums and alleys of oursmoke-ridden towns dance to-day when the Italian organ man comes roundwith his instrument. The melody and rhythm float out and call to themusic lying hid in their hearts, and their self responds. Somethingwithin them demands instant expression, and they forget their slums indancing their merry measure, till the music stops and the Italian passeson to raise Fairyland in the next slum. Music has given them a glimpseof something outside their dull and prosaic surroundings, it has touchedtheir hearts with a glamour which is a glint of spiritual sunshine in adrab world. 

It was our privilege a dozen years or more ago to have a small share inthe active work of the Art Studies Association of Liverpool. Thisorganisation, due to the zeal of the Director of Education, existed forthe purpose of introducing the joys of Music to the children of thevarious elementary schools. Concerts of different types were given fortheir benefit in their own schoolrooms in the evenings, and asadmittance could not be given to all it was considered a privilege to beable to attend. The pathos stills echoes in mind when we recall how someof these children, boys and girls, would trudge out in the wetevenings, often ill-nourished and insufficiently clad, to taste the joysof music. Never was there any question of attention, for they wereeagerness personified, and it seemed as if they found there somethingthat their souls had missed. Too little do we realise that food andclothing do not suffice us, young or old. We cannot live by bread alone:our stomachs may be full and our souls empty. The spiritual side of ournature demands sustenance and, as in the case of these hungry and oftenwet little school children, it is the province of Music to minister tothat need. "A love of music is worth any amount of five-fingerexercises, and the capacity to enjoy a Symphony is beyond allexamination certificates. "[2]

[Note 2: "Everyman and his Music. " Scholes. ]

A brass band will fill a whole street with glamour, and the normalperson finds it quite impossible to be out of step with the rhythm ofthe march. Watch the way in which, as the Pied Piper of Hamelin drew thechildren after him, the band draws the elders to the window and thechildren to the street: the appeal is never in vain. Marching in timewith the music tired feet forget their weariness, and new strength comesfrom the reserves of the greater self, liberated at the unspoken appealof melody and rhythm. The Salvation Army with its sometimes quiteexcellent brass bands ever attracts a crowd of interested listeners. Their enthusiasm is quite as real as, and perhaps even more real than, that of a fashionable audience in the Queen's Hall: more real, becauseif the Salvation Army fails to please it is always possible to walkaway. If a person is bored at the Queen's Hall a lack of moral couragewill probably detain him to the end of the performance. There is magicin a bugle call, there are whole volumes of countryside history in aposthorn's blast as the four-horse coach swings past. The beat of thedrum and the shrill pipe of the fifes carry a "come-along" atmospherewith them, and if we fail to answer the call it is most likely with alingering feeling of regret that the days of adventure for us are pastand gone. 

All this is the incidental music of the highways and byways, but as aperennial stimulant for the emotions we call for Music's aid in manycircumstances. Does not the villain of the piece enter and take thestage to a suggestively diabolic tremolo in the orchestra, and is notthe lovemaking also conducted to an appropriately sensuousaccompaniment, sufficiently subdued, to keep the emotions susceptibleand fluid? Could the villain enter with the same éclat to a stonysilence, or the lovemaking thrill in the same way without the moralsupport of a few well-chosen harmonies? It may be that in heighteningthe emotional element we correspondingly diminish the appeal to theintelligence, and thus render ourselves less critical both ofstage-villainy and of fictitious lovemaking. 

Nothing can be accomplished without music of some sort. We must have itin our churches and our chapels, in our moving pictures, in schools, atbanquets and dinners, and in the restaurants. Could any bride feel thesame satisfaction in walking down the silent aisle of the church, afterthe most important ceremony in the world, as if the organ were pealingout its good wishes in Mendelssohn's Wedding March? Oh NO. Music we musthave, for it has wedded itself to all our pomp and ceremony, and if wemay not have it in any other guise we must at least end up with "AuldLang Syne" or "For he's a jolly good fe-e-ellow, " or at any rate theNational Anthem. 

In the robust and plain-speaking days of old Pepys our forbears tooktheir Musick seriously. There was less of the gadding about that fillsthe time to-day, and much of the melody was perforce home-made. Anyeducated person was expected to be able to take his part in a glee atsight, and some of the music was none too easy at that. The contrastwith the present lamentable lack of sight-reading ability is mostmarked. The number of people who could do the same to-day is, incomparison, small. We have not made progress in this direction, indeedwe have fallen back. But we have multiplied our choirs and our choralsocieties, our Musical Festivals with their competitions have takensolid root, training in musical work is now more widespread than everbefore, and these considerations have served, and are serving, to makemusic more and more a part of the national life. 

Sometimes indeed we happen upon music in unexpected quarters. One of themost impressive scenes that comes to mind is an occasion during theGreat War--in which music played so valiant a part in sustaining themorale of combatants and non-combatants alike--when, drawn up on thedeparture platform of a Metropolitan railway station, in full kit and intwo long ranks, was a number of Welsh Guards. They were singing somesong in two parts, and while the one half sustained the melody theothers were rolling out a fine contrapuntal accompaniment with full, resonant, and sonorous tone. The effect was quite remarkable. Songheartens us when weary and helps the miles to slip past even though theditty be but "Tipperary" or "John Brown's body. " In the emergencysomeone will strike up a ditty or a hymn and at once the human spiritand Will revive their native courage: did not the Titanic sink to thestrains of the hymn "Lead, kindly Light, " sung by a group of those whowere facing death, and faced it with song upon their lips?

We have music in our heritage, we have Folk Songs by land and Chantiesthat smack of the seas: in these there lies a wealth of melody andsentiment of which we have made too little. But it is entirely charmingto see the way in which small children in the schools will sing thesesongs with complete natural verve and appreciation. "Oh, no John, noJohn, No" will be rendered with that Art which only springs fromartlessness. Surely it is to the young that we must look if the love ofmusic is to be fostered and encouraged in the coming years. "Let therising generation become thoroughly well acquainted with the bestMusical works through the medium of concert-lectures, the mechanicalpiano-player, municipal, hotel, and garden concerts. Let them follow uptheir knowledge with reading about Musicians' lives, work, andinfluence. Throughout all this instruction--and from the veryfirst--let them become acquainted with the elements of musical theory, both in their minds and also as exemplified on the pianoforte keyboard:and when all this has been done we shall have a cultivated musicalpublic--a public that is able to discriminate between the good and thebad, the true and the false art. "[3] This may perhaps be the counsel ofperfection of an enthusiast, but progress lies more along the lines ofappreciation of music than in the personal performance of it. There arethousands who are able to appreciate the technical mastery of aninstrument to every one who can accomplish it. Music as taught atpresent in the non-elementary schools is largely a snare and a delusion. A few are turned out with a musicianly equipment, largely in spite ofthe system rather than by its aid, but the vast majority have littlemore than a smattering of musical knowledge and a mediocre standard ofexecutive ability as the result of years of study. But the growth of theartistic soul is not accomplished through the fingers, and indeed it isnot infrequently strangled at birth by five-finger exercises. 

[Note 3: Newlandsmith. "The Temple of Art. "]

Yet we are waking up. Music already occupies an unassailable position inour daily activities, it will presently occupy a still greater place. Nothing is still, and least of all does Art remain fixed. The wholeworld is awakening to a new standard of values, for we have at lengthdiscovered the impossibility of running civilisation on purelymaterialistic lines. The inner side of things is becoming manifest, anda measure of spiritual insight is being vouchsafed to us: therefore allthose things which minister to the spiritual will be increased in ourregard. Of these Music is certainly not the least. "Religion, love, andMusic, are they not the three-fold expression of the same fact, the needof expansion under which every noble soul labours?"[4] So the Art of thefuture may be expected to ally itself with religion, on the side ofspirit, for the battle royal against the forces of an outwornmaterialism. The end is not by any means yet, but the issue is certain:and we ourselves to-day may play the more valiant part in the mouldingof the years to be if we realise to the full, not only what Music is andthe part it plays in life, but also the fine possibilities that liehidden in the future. 

[Note 4: Balzac. ]

CHAPTER III

THE EXPRESSION OF LIFE

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life"

_Beethoven_

If Music be a means of expression, we must needs ask ourselves what itexpresses. It is entirely insufficient to accept music as sequence or acombination of tones that "sound nice. " It would be just as reasonableto regard a meal as something that tastes nice, whereas of course themeal has a meaning and a use beyond mere taste: its purpose is tosustain life, and the question of taste is merely incidental to thelarger issue. Music therefore may sound nice, but we desire to arrive atsome explanation far transcending this. 

All phases of life express something, and we shall not be very far fromthe truth if we regard that something as spirit. The grass, we say, isalive: but its life consists in its ability to express that essentialsomething which we here term spirit. When it is no longer able toaccomplish this, the grass is still there, but we call it dead. We mightdraw an apt parallel from the electric light bulb: this is nothing but apossible source of light, until it is connected with the main supplyfrom the generating station. The seeming independence of the bulb is afiction, it has no true existence as a lamp until it expresses itself bygiving light. Yet the light is not its own light, and when the filamentbreaks and the current can no longer circulate through the bulb itceases to be a lamp. It is, like the grass, dead: and for exactly thesame reason, that it can no longer express life or spirit. 

Furthermore, the amount of resistance that a lamp interposes to the freecirculation of the current through it has its effect upon the light itgives. One lamp may yield a fine light, and another on the same circuitmay afford but poor illumination: the one expresses well, and the otherill. So, too, with the grass, one patch may be free-growing and anothermay be but poor stuff: one expresses well, and the other feebly. In thesame way with ourselves, if our bodies have the life force circulatingfreely they express robust health: and if the force find but aconstricted channel, then our bodies express health in scanty measureand approximate more to disease than to the normal well-being. Ourbodies are no more independent organisms than is the lamp bulb: theyexpress the spirit which is the essence of the self, and when that selfwithdraws the body is as dead as the grass or the worn-out bulb. Yet thefailure of the bulb casts no reflection upon the generating station, forthe current is still there. We do not need to assume that the currenthas failed, for in that case it would fail alike for every bulb upon thecircuit. If every form and phase of life were to expire and cease at agiven moment, we might then, and then only, be justified in assumingthat spirit had ceased to be: but in that case there would be but littleneed for us to worry about the point. 

We may imagine spirit as the driving force behind everything, as theurge towards evolution, as the pent-up intelligence which ever seeks onevariation and then another. Then, when one variation appears, moreappropriate to its surroundings than others, this, because of itsfitness, survives. As human beings we are individualised fragments ofthe great universal spirit. There is only the one life and the onespirit, but there are diversities of gifts to enable that spirit to beexpressed. The grass expresses it in its luxuriance, its colour, andits growth: the birds in their song: and the whole of what we arepleased to term the lower creation bespeaks this spirit in the dailyactivity. When this expression ceases, the thing that was once alive isdead. 

There is no special merit that all the works of the Lord should thuspraise the Lord in their expression, because below the stage of a humanbeing there is no option. The lower forms of life are like lamps on acircuit which light up by reason of the current over which theyexercised no control. But a human being is like a lamp that is connectedwith the main circuit and yet has its own switch. This ability to switchon or off constitutes our measure of freewill, our power of saying yesor no. It is a necessary accompaniment of our knowledge of good and evilfor "no choice, no progress. " It betokens our progress from the merelyanimal stage of consciousness to that of self-consciousness--the phaseof existence where we not only know, but we know that we know. Thisability to express well, badly, or not at all, just as we may please, isour special prerogative: it gives man the privilege, which is denied toall life below him, of deliberately choosing the worse and of making afool of himself. The animals know what is good for them because theyfollow their unreasoning instincts and blindly repeat the racial courseof action implanted within them, and the mere survival of the speciesproves that this particular response to the particular circumstance hasbeen "tried out" by ages of experience. But a man blinds and smothershis instincts (and these at the best, it may be observed, are distinctlymixed) or perhaps indulges them in defiance of his better judgment, andthus his expression of his own divinity is often sadly marred. [5]

[Note 5: James Rhoades. ]

 "Know this, O man, sole root of sin in thee Is not to know thine own divinity. "

A man may even deny the very existence of spirit, and thus by a subtlebut efficacious species of self-suggestion prevent its manifestation inhimself. But whether he expresses this spirit well or ill, a man does infact join with all creation below him in manifesting this innatespirituality without which there can be no life. 

Thus everything stands for something else that is deeper, there is anouter form and an inner soul or spirit. Spenser thus expresses it:--

 "For of the soule the bodie forme doth take, For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make. "

It is only when we grasp this elementary truth that life becomes in theleast plain and intelligible, and the result of grasping it is that wecease to be deceived by the apparent values of things, and are able toappraise them more at their true and spiritual worth. We are thenenabled to pass from circumstances (which are results) to the realm ofcauses: the balance is transferred from the seen to the unseen, and thepoint of view approximates more to the eternal than the transient. Agreater poise and certainty follow as a matter of course, since themental outlook is centred in the true rather than the seeming. 

All life then is the expression of spirit, and our varied activities arebut the modes of this expression. To this, Music is no exception. Verynaturally also, the better the machinery or the technique of expression, the more of the spirit can get through. We can play moresympathetically, more fluently, and with finer effect on a beautiful"grand" than on a jangly upright instrument: the one is a better vehicleof expression than the other. So also we can secure more fluentexpression with a fountain pen than with one that continually interruptsthe free flow of ideas by demanding to be dipped in the inkpot. We havetwo typewriters of the same manufacture, but one is an early model andthe other a modern machine: there is a vast difference in the ease ofexpressing thought, in the favour of the later instrument with all itsspecial conveniences. In general terms the object of all improvement oftechnical means is the better expression of the spirit. Musically, topractise scales and exercises with the object of getting one's fingersloose is like eating for the sake of developing a fluent jaw action--thevision of the end has been lost in the means. We must ever keep in viewthe fact that life itself, and especially Art and Music, can only fulfila proper purpose when resulting in the ever-increasing and betterexpression of the underlying spirit, or as Elgar puts it--"more ofTruth. "

The law of spirit is Love. The drive of spirit is ever upward towardsprogress, aspiration, and unity. If we take a drop of quicksilver andseparate it into smaller particles, as soon as ever the conditionsallow, these smaller globules will amalgamate themselves with the largerbody from which they have been temporarily divorced. We can almostimagine we hear them utter a fervent "thank goodness" as they reach thathome of heart's desire. So are we, too, as separated and individualisedsparks of the divine fire, burning till at length we reach our freedomand can merge ourselves in that Sun of spirit whence, "trailing cloudsof glory, " we have come. 

Man, we say, is a gregarious animal, and it is certainly only the man ofwarped mind who seeks to cut himself off from his fellows: we are all ofus spirits, and spirit seeks unity and approach. Love is the one unitingand binding force in the universe, just as its opposite--hatred--is thedisintegrating element. Love operates in attraction, as we see it inmotherhood, childhood, and the love of man and maid. But it also workson the grand scale in the guise of the law of Gravity which attracts andbinds universes together, and regulates and controls the swing ofinconceivable immensities. Look again and we may see love working aschemical affinity to attract molecule to molecule, or as cohesion tokeep the very particles knit together in kinship. 

It is this spirit of love that unites the myriad cells of our own bodyinto the little commonwealth of self: when this life-force withdraws, the love ceases to bind, and immediately the "dead" body becomesinfinitely alive, but the unity is at an end and decomposition has setin. So love is the fulfilling of the law: not merely "a" law, but thevery fundamental law on which our continued existence hangs. Eliminategravity, and the universe as we know it must come to an end in acatastrophe which it is beyond the power of our imagination to conceive. If cohesion ceased to be, then everything would fall to powder and woulddisintegrate. Destroy all love between man and man, and civilisationitself would fall to pieces. This is no question of dogma, gospel, orman-made law, it is simply a plain statement of the fundamentalcondition of our very existence. The importance of love is paramount, and if we are wise we shall seek to discover these overriding laws ofour being, and adjust our lives in conformity with their requirements. 

Spirit is love, and love manifests itself in service: the love thatseeks its own ends, or strives to get instead of to serve, is no love atall. Therefore if Music is to express this spirit it must do so bycontributing its meed of assistance to make this workaday world morebright by gladdening the heart of man. Quite obviously much of the musicthat is written has been composed with no such intent, therefore and tothat extent it stultifies itself. It must be classed as the "soundingbrass and tinkling cymbal" of the prophet. St. Paul's analysis of thereason of the ineffectiveness of such, too, is searchingly accurate:that, lacking charity, it signified nothing. Charity is only anothersynonym for that love which is the manifestation of spirit. The truemusician has this spirit of love within him and it demands expression, and so we find Mozart exclaiming "I write because I cannot help it. " SoGranville Bantock, too--"The impulse to create Music is on me, and Iwrite to gratify my impulse. When I have written the work I have donewith it. What I do desire is to begin to enjoy myself by writingsomething else. "[6] The musician sings because he must: he writes sothat the spirit may find its outlet in that direction: or he plays, whenonly through his fingers and the instrument can he find that expressionwhich his soul demands. 

[Note 6: J. C. Hadden, "Modern Musicians. "]

When Music is thus outpoured it speaks of spirit, and adds to thespiritual store of the world. It reinforces the unseen hosts that fightfor spirit in the age-long struggle with the powers of materialism anddarkness. No breath of spirit is ever lost, and nothing devoid of it isever permanent, either in music or in anything else. Sounds withoutsense or meaning are futile, notes without a heartfelt message are"returned empty" as they were sent forth, and practice without purposeother than mere self-gratification, agility, or display, is amagnificent and glorious waste of time. But Music, when its trueunderlying purport is discovered, is at once an inspiration and a mostreal means of achieving that fundamental object, for which our veryexistence here at this present moment is devised, namely spiritualgrowth and development. 

CHAPTER IV

SPIRIT A LIVING FACT

"Is Music the inarticulate Speech of the Angels on earth? Or avoice of the Undiscovered Bringing great truths to the birth?"

_F. W. Faber_

Life is a diversity in unity, and the expression in countless differentforms and shapes of the one fundamental reality, spirit. We ourselvesare comprehended in this definition, being part of this fundamentalspirit, and claiming thereby our divinity. Music also, as a part oflife, is subject to the same explanation: and thus the spirit of Musicis a real thing. The Muses of a Classical day typified this same idea ofthe spirit behind the form. Indeed man, spiritual as at base he is, cannever rest finally satisfied with the outer semblance and form: just asthe body craves sustenance, so does the spiritual part of him. No amountof physical satisfaction will ever allay the heart-hunger, and no floodof Rationalist thinking will ever put an end to the instinctive searchafter the Unknown God. 

In spiritual law, as in natural law, nothing is ever lost. We study thephysical, and by analogy we may learn much of the spiritual: we have notbeen left without guidance in the maze of life. But the first essentialis that we should study those things which are open to us, and throughthem learn something of the wisdom that otherwise lies hidden. Nothingis lost: we see, as the hymn puts it, "change and decay, " but the decayis only change of form, and death, in the form of extinction, simplydoes not exist. Even thoughts, transient and gossamer as they mayappear, do their work in our brains and leave their permanent impresswith us. Occultists further assure us that they are recorded in theeternal archives. It is said that there are the Akashic Records, in somesubtle way which we cannot pretend to understand, imprinted in theether. "This primary substance is of exquisite fineness and is sosensitive that the slightest vibration... Registers an indelibleimpression upon it. "[7] If this be so, then here is the story of allthat has ever been, and all that is. In our own subconscious minds weknow full well that there is such a perfect and complete record as toconstitute an individual Judgment Book within of unimpeachable accuracy, and there seems to be nothing intrinsically unreasonable in the ideathat there should be something of the kind on a world scale. Monumentalhistories of the traditional lost continent of Atlantis have beencompiled, professedly from this source, and we find an interestinginkling of the same idea in the way in which objects will sometimesimpress sensitive folk with their own history. Things sometimes have a"feel" about them, pleasant or the reverse, just as buildings acquire anaura and an atmosphere, sacred or convivial, or even unholy. 

[Note 7: Dowling. "The Aquarian Gospel. "]

The musician, then, may obey Nature's universal behest, and change hisform from the physical of to-day to the more tenuous of a finer realm. He may die: but his music lives on. He perhaps has played his part inthe world symphony and, his present work finished, he lays hisinstrument aside. This body of ours is the instrument of the spirit: nowedding feast without a wedding garment, and no part or lot in thephysical world without a body. The tuning of the body to delicateresponse and high endeavour enables the spirit to express its melody thebetter, and therefore it is incumbent upon the musician to cultivate ahigh standard of physical health. This does not mean the maximum ofnourishment, combined with stimulants to compel a jaded appetite: on thecontrary, artistic efficiency demands super-cleanliness and a tolerablyrigid self-denial. Girth is no measure of artistic ability. But thebody, sound or otherwise, is the instrument through which we play life'slittle tune, just as the pianist plays through his pianoforte. But whenwe have closed the pianoforte nobody supposes that we have extinguishedthe artist, or annihilated the music: we have merely put an end to itsexpression for the time. So when our instrument of the body grows old, worn-out, or decrepit, so that it can no longer answer to the dictatesof the spirit within, we cast it aside, as an instrument whose keys arebroken, or whose strings are for ever mute. Then the musician goes uponhis far journey. 

But long though the journey seem, it is a change of state rather than ofplace: as if from being cased in solid ice he now were buoyant in limpidwater. His music and his melodies which were so great a part of him nowconstitute his real self, besides being for ever inscribed upon the rollof eternal remembrance. So the great musicians still live on, and whenwe claim that such-and-such an interpreter gives us the spirit of Bach, we may be saying more truly than we realise. There is no limit to therange of thought save the intrinsic nature of the thought itself. Allthoughts seek their own, by the law of sympathy: like to like, fine tofine, and gross to gross. "Not all of us give due credit to theanomalous nature of love, reaching as high as heaven, sinking as low ashell, uniting in itself all extremes of good and evil, of lofty andlow. "[8] So when a man steeps himself in thoughts of a type, when heponders over and lives in the music of a master, his thoughts span therealms and the ages, and he reaches that master, even if only to touchthe hem of his garment. Then the master's thoughts are his, and he trulygives of the spirit of the music, for a measure of inspiration has beenvouchsafed to him. 

[Note 8: Jung. "Analytical Psychology. "]

Whatever we dwell upon has its "tuning" effect upon our thoughts, andthus we reach some of the lore and wisdom of those who have trodden theway before us. The inventor and the discoverer are truly what the wordsimply: the inventor "comes upon" the new idea or principle, and thediscoverer "uncovers" and makes plain. But all the ideas and all the newand novel discoveries, and all the laws, were there before: we onlyreach them when we have climbed to a sufficient height to be able toapprehend them. So the musician who reaches the spirit of Bach has, bythe attunement of his thoughts and his aspirations, crept into the heartof the music and has tugged at the musician's heart-strings. He hastouched the composer's soul, and henceforth he plays Music, not notes. 

Again, Bach, and all the masters of Music have in their turn butdiscovered the Music that was already there. No man really creates, anymore than the gardener creates an oak tree by the planting of an acorn. The gardener provides the necessary conditions in which the oak, alreadymiraculously pent within the acorn, can unfold and develop. So themusician also provides the necessary conditions in which the spirit ofMusic can blossom and bear fruit. He need take to himself no vast amountof credit, for he is but a trustee of that which has been lent to him:he neither creates it nor owns it. His music is a gift of spirit, andwhen by his life's work he has glorified that gift, then henceforth thatis his contribution to the universal store of spirit, and his Artbelongs to the ages. 

Inspiration is a commonplace of life, though only too often we think ofit solely in connection with religion, and especially with reference tothe Bible. Because thought flies free and ever consorts like with like, so almost every moment of our days we are inspiring others and beinginspired in return. It is mere delusion that we consider ourselvesindependent units, for we are literally built of one another. Memorylargely constitutes the man, for his every experience and thought isrecorded by his subconscious memory, and goes to the making of hischaracteristics and his personality. Day by day we meet, and perforceremember each other: we remember also those to whom we may never havespoken, and so--unintroduced--they creep in this subtle way into ourpersonality. "We are, each one of us, united by bonds of emotionalinfluence with the personalities of all those with whom we have had todo. If we could see them, they would guide us to their objects, for theynever lose their way. Thus by threads of love, threads of hatred, threads of adoration, threads of thought, the universe of souls isinterpenetrated and linked up into a unity of correlated activity, anintricate web of life. "[9] Something of myself goes, in my thoughts, into this written word: you read it, and as the thought incorporatesitself in your mind so does some tenuous element of my personality creepinto your own. Our independence is a fiction. We inspire each other, whether we like it or no. 

[Note 9: C. J. Whitby, M. D. "The Open Secret. "]

But inspiration is of all kinds: it is like those neutral forces offaith and thought, which depend for their result upon the direction inwhich they are turned. Inspiration can uplift, but it may also degrade. We ourselves by the tuning of our own thoughts determine which it shallaccomplish. Like can only answer to like: anger can never play echo tolove, for their vibrations are so far apart in attunement that the onecannot influence the other. But anger answers to anger, and love tolove. It is the eternal response of the love implanted in the spirit ofman that ever bids him answer to the love that radiates from the divine. Hence, in whatever age or clime we look, always there is to be seen manin quest for the unseen, after joy, beauty, truth, happiness, after allthose spangles that glitter on the garment of love. 

The mind of man is ever the tenuous instrument upon which are playingthe invisible forces of inspiration. All the thoughts that have existed, exist still: all the thoughts that man can ever think are there already, they do but await the time and season in which he can sense andinterpret them. These are the future discoveries for you and for me. The pioneers who have passed our way are still working at the tasksthat were at once their life and love: and they have not gone so farupon the journey that they have outspanned the reach of thought. If ourthoughts be fine and unselfish enough, if aspiration tune themsufficiently high, they will reach their aim: and the reply will bevouchsafed. There was never yet an aspirant who was unable to find ateacher. It is most true that the living and the dead are still onefamily, for of course there are no "dead, " unless we most correctly putinto this category the dull of hearing, the dull of heart, and theloveless who still walk this earth. But if we deem the pioneers defunctand inarticulate, then it is little likely that we shall comprehend thereality and the naturalness of this interplay and inspiration. If wenever seek, information and insight will scarcely drop upon us from theskies. 

We talk of inspired playing, inspired teaching, the gift of song, and soon, and we talk of a reality. The playing that is not inspired is worthbut little, it has the worth of a nutshell with the kernel goneamissing. It is sound, perhaps it may even be fine sound, yet itsignifies nothing: it is as the painted face aping true beauty. Artwithout inspiration is our electric light bulb disconnected from themain current. There are prophets in the world to-day, for a prophet inthe strict sense of the word is one who speaks forth his message. Everyone who senses something of the eternal message--which is love--isin his degree a prophet, yea and a saviour too. He may speak or sing, hemay perform or compose, he may wait and serve, or he may just pass hismessage on with a handshake and a smile: he is an interpreter, a mediumtwixt wisdom and the unwise. Thus we must place the true artist, whatever be the particular bent of his activities, as a prophet in hisday and his generation. That he may be far from being regarded as suchby those to whom he ministers is merely one of the incidentaldisadvantages of being a prophet. 

Quite obviously also there will be both good prophets and bad: even aprosaic telegram may be repeated on payment of half the original cost, because of the possibility of error occurring in the text. How much moremay error occur, then, when tenuous messages are being sent from highsources by the power of thought, and when the receiving instrument is sooften imperfect, so frequently out of gear, and when that instrument inaddition is more than a trifle wilful and tainted with selfishness. Inspiration is ever ready, it floats around us like tuned wirelessvibrations waiting to be picked up by a sympathetic receiver. Yet so fewreceivers, being but human after all, are sensitive enough andsufficiently delicate in in their poise to catch the floating news: andso the harvest is plenteous but those who garner it are few. 

Perhaps Sullivan felt something of this when, in the "Prodigal Son, " hepenned the simplest and yet most eloquent of melodies to the words, "Othat thou hadst hearkened to My commandments, " ending up with the words, set too simply for any but a consummate artist to sing with completeeffect, --"Turn ye, turn ye--why will ye die?" The marvel truly is thatwe are already so dead, so immured and petrified in our hardself-satisfaction, when we might so easily develop the freedom, fluidity, and delicacy of fine response to these tenuous intimations ofour own spirituality and high destiny. Here we live, as some writer hasaptly said, on top of a gold mine, and the tragedy is that we areignorant of the gold. We live, and move, and have our being in an oceanof spiritual and inspiring thought: surely our problem is to find theconditions that will avail to put us in touch with this lively world ofinspiration in which we are accustomed to pass so dead and unresponsivean existence. 

CHAPTER V

THE CONDITIONS OF INSPIRATION

"The greatest Masterpieces in Music will be found to containsensuous, emotional, and rational factors, and something beside:some divine element of life by which they are animated andinspired"

_W. H. Hadow_

It may be interesting for a little space to consider the conditionsunder which Inspiration operates, for, like any other faculty, it issubject to the control of law. We have already emphasised theuniversality of vibration and the call of like to like, but the themewill bear some further elaboration. 

We adventure into the study of sound and its laws and we find that allsounds are propagated by means of waves. These proceed in circularfashion, as do the ripples upon the still surface of a lake into which astone has been thrown. Further, these waves are of differing rates. Middle C, on the piano, for instance, is made by waves that reach us atthe rate of about 256 per second. As sound travels roughly at 1, 100feet to the second, it is clear that the wave of this note is somethingover four feet from crest to crest. The wave of a note an octave higherwould be double the rate and half the length. In addition to this theremay be big waves and little waves travelling at the same rate, and alsothe actual shape of the waves may differ very widely. Thus waves havepoints of similarity and yet their infinite variety, as do human beings. 

This variety in the shape of the waves results in the difference intimbre between various tones. Nobody could fail to distinguish betweenthe sound of a note played on a penny whistle and the same note givenout on a violin or a cornet: yet the actual rate of wave would be thesame in each case. The reason is that no tone is a pure fundamentaltone, there are always super-added a number of other tones, termed theovertones. These are, to the original tone, exactly what the flavouringis to the pudding. You have your fundamental tone and you can add yourovertones to taste: you can flavour with the penny whistle, the violin, or the cornet timbre to suit yourself. But according to the flavouring, so is the shape of the wave. Isolated fundamental tones are apt to becolourless and monotonous, like the diapason work on an organ. Theorganist is able to flavour his fundamental tone at will, by the stopshe draws to add to it: he has a special supply of "mixtures" which soundtruly dreadful and impossible by themselves, but these in combinationwith the fundamental go to the making of a successful timbre. Carrots, by themselves, are not a Christmas diet, but we understand that they goto improve the flavour of the festive pudding. 

In some such way as this thoughts are tuned, and from the thoughts wethink, the desires we entertain, and the aspirations which fill oursouls, the timbre of our life is determined. No one is fundamentally andwholly good or bad, we have all of us our overtones, and some of us havevery curious mixtures which go to make us what we are. But just as thegramophone will take in all the wonderful complexity of sound waveswhich are sent out by a whole orchestra of instruments, and will combinethese into one wavy line on the record--a kind of compound wavecontaining "all the elements so mixed"--so also it is with ourselves. All the thought elements are so mixed in us that as we go through lifewe vibrate to a note that is unique, compounded as it is of all thoseinner thoughts and emotions that are so exclusively our own. To thosewho sound the same note, or one that is in harmony, we are akin. We meetthem for the first time, and in a moment we have known them for years, perhaps always: we play unison or harmony in our sympathetic attunement. On the other hand, sounding our persistent middle C on our littlejourney, perhaps we come up against an equally insistent C sharp:excellent notes, each of them--yet there promises but doubtful harmony. Keep to your own key, and be happy. 

Whatever note we sing is an invisible, and yet most potent, influence inour lives. We may deem that our thoughts do not matter overmuch, andthat it is only deeds that count. Heresy and mistake. Thoughts make usor mar us. Sympathy ensures that we are surrounded and encompassed bythat which we ourselves attract. There is a law of consonance, and weare responsible for things in a way that but few realise. This note wesing, this mirror of our personality, this invisible force attracts ourfriends: change the note--the personality--and we inevitably alter thefriendships which were determined thereby. This same note selects theclothes we wear, the things we eat, it chooses the books we read and theavocations we pursue. It is reflected in the pictures on our walls, andin the furniture which decorates our rooms. It determines the prospectswhich are before us, just as it has attracted the appropriatedifficulties and trials that we have left behind. It marries us, andeventually it buries us. Sometimes our overtones of desires or greedinter us long before our lease of life is due to expire. But perhapsmost important of all, it determines and selects the Inspiration we areable to receive. 

Thoughts of every kind beat upon our minds, as the waves lap theseashore, but we are only able to respond to those that call and awakensome sympathetic answer within us. The heart that is pure can live in anocean of impurity, and yet remain unsullied: but the character withanger implanted within will find that anger blazing out in echo andanswer to a hundred provocations a day. Hatred means nothing, intemptation or response, to a heart overflowing with love. Thus thisattunement is at once an avenue for our assault, or our sure shield ofdefence, according as its note determines. A low tone is an ever-presentdanger, and a high one a permanent safeguard. 

Inspiration is therefore only possible to us at our own level, andunless we are mentally attuned to a high note the inspiration itselfwill reach no lofty measure. It is true that a mood of exaltation, ofearnest prayer or aspiration, may enable us to catch a glimpse of thehigher vision, but under these circumstances it is apt to be elusive andfragmentary. The condition of any permanent influx is that theattunement should be habitually and continuously lofty. When thiscondition is at length reached we are not so very far from that "prayerwithout ceasing, " which most truly means "the practice of the presenceof God. "

The avenue of inspiration is the subconscious part of the mind, thatpart of us which in fact constitutes the greater self. In ordinary lifethis department of mind is more or less shielded by the consciousness. It would retain the permanent impress of every idea it came across, wereit not that the consciousness off-hand and summarily rejects a number ofimpressions which might otherwise prove detrimental. One man callsanother a fool, but this one knows very well that he is nothing of thekind, and so the idea carries very little weight in its record on thesubconscious. On the other hand, if there were no protective mechanismof this nature, the subconscious might very well accept the statementand believe that its owner certainly was the fool he had been dubbed. The effect, therefore, of consciousness is thus to limit and reducethis sensitiveness and susceptibility of the subconscious part of mind. 

As the consciousness passes out of action, as in dream states, brownstudies, and in the induced sleep of hypnosis, this sensitiveness andactivity of the subconscious gradually emerges. The normal sleep, or asIamblichus calls it--"The night-time of the body"--is, to continue hisremark, "the day-time of the soul. " Thus it is so often in the Biblestories that we find the phrase--"The Lord--or the Angel of theLord--appeared, in a dream. " These waves of thought and Inspiration arecontinually lapping the margin of our subconscious selves, both by dayand by night, leaving the dream-traces of their impress as the rippleleaves its marks upon the sand. It is the connection between thisunder-mind and the consciousness that is so frequently at fault, so thatwe remain unaware of the tidings. Usually the consciousness is kept sobusily engaged that it never has a minute to itself, and so peace, quiet, and receptivity are unknown. The subconscious tries hard to getin its modest word occasionally and edgeways, but the consciousnessrarely stops talking: the whole business is one-sided. Plenty ofmaterial goes from the consciousness to the subconscious, butcomparatively little is able to come in the reverse direction. 

This, of course, is a distorted method of existing: there should ever bein the mind a process corresponding to the in-breathing andout-breathing of the lungs. The active and acquisitive consciousnessprocures the mental food: the subconscious stores this up, assimilatesit, and turns it into a kind of inner mentor or conscience which in duecourse issues its orders and offers its advice. But just as we are saidto stifle the "still, small voice, " so also do we strangle our possibleinventions and discoveries, and so do we cause our inspirations toremain still-born. This is the price we pay for our mad rush after thethings that do not matter. We have said that no aspirant ever lacks ateacher, but we would further say that when a person is content to makeuse of the subconscious powers he possesses, he will find that theknowledge and the inspiration he earnestly seeks will be granted him. "With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power ofjoy, we see into the heart of things. "[10] The acorn is already in thegarden of the mind, we need only to provide the requisite conditions forgrowth, and the oak tree will then follow as a matter of course. 

[Note 10: Wordsworth. ]

Things grow and fashion themselves in this under-mind, as the novelistand dramatist will testify. The artist finds his picture forming itselfbefore his inner vision, and so the musician hears his composition. "Itcomes, " they say: so does the oak. But like the oak it can only comewhen conditions allow, and one of the main conditions is that theconsciousness should not rule the roost, and hold sway and dominance tothe exclusion and smothering of the still, small voice. "Be still, andknow. "

Many things and conditions clog communication from the under-mind to theconsciousness. The well-being of the body is of the utmost importance: aclogged and constipated body is no medium for inspiration. High livingkills the genius of inspiration, and masterpieces are more oftenproduced in the garret than where luxury rules. Success is an evengreater test of true genius than is poverty. A bilious attack will put astop to the most perfervid outpourings of genius, and a common cold inthe nose will play havoc with a work of Art. An unstable temperamentwill have its moments of exaltation and its hours of despair: this issensitiveness uncontrolled. Sensitiveness is indeed the stock-in-tradeof all who work in the temple of Art, but unless it be controlled byreins of more than ordinary strength it is a very doubtful blessing. Wemust ever be able to keep our souls in tune so that they afford no echoto the undesirable. Indulgence of the body in any form hampers its workas an instrument of the spirit, while self-discipline (tho' by no meansto the verge of asceticism) increases its sensitiveness, and occasionalquiet periods afford the opportunity for the subconscious treasures toreveal themselves. 

On the mental side, selfishness is one of the most complete andeffectual deadeners of inspiration. The delicate intimations of finerthings can make no impression on a hide-bound mind. As Trine somewhereputs it--"The man who is always thinking of himself generally looks asif he were thinking of something disagreeable. " The self-centred mind isa mind closed to other things, and to this extent it is nearly alwaysunbalanced and distorted. Under these conditions such inspiration as itmay receive is liable to be of an uncouth and bizarre nature. Hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness tune the mind to very undesirablelevels, and at this level it will come in touch with the whole body ofsimilar undesirable thought that is circulating around it. It both givesout and receives. Such a mind is indeed doing active work in the world, but in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, the individual who setshimself to work positively and constructively to utilise inspiration, asit assuredly may be used, is in some degree helping his generation andbecoming a prophet, and maybe a saviour. 

CHAPTER VI

THE INTERPRETER

"I like joy, for it is life. I preach joy, for it alone gives thepower of creating useful and lasting work"

_Jaques Dalcroze_

There are, roughly speaking, three classes of interpreters in Music:performers or executants, composers, and teachers. The function of eachof these is, by a special sensitiveness, to apprehend the message ofspirit, and then, by their own technique and in their own particularway, to pass it on for the benefit of others. In the body the nervoussystem, which is the link between spirit and matter, serves somewhat thesame purpose. Spirit is too tenuous to be able to act directly upon thecomparatively inert matter of the body, but through the medium of thebrain and nervous system it makes contact with spirit at the one end, and at the other the nerves control the muscular system, which effectsthe necessary and desired movements. Thus the spirit in music is sensedby the artist in solitude and communion, and is given out by him to themultitude in public. 

The artist thus necessarily has two sides to his work, the inner and theouter, the artistic and the technical. No amount of technique alone willever make an artist, nor will artistic or spiritual perception by itselfenable the message to secure adequate treatment. Both sides areindispensable. But there has been far too much worship of mere techniquein Music, until at times even the fact that there has been any messageat all has been overlooked. In times, happily now gone by, a simplemelody which perhaps by itself might have conveyed a homely message, hasbeen smothered under showers of variations, decked out in wearisomearpeggios, and entangled in meaningless scales, until it has remindedone of nothing so much as a vulgar and greatly over-dressed woman: andyet this has been looked upon as music. Technique is indeed necessary, but only as a means to an end. Directly it begins to obscure themeaning, or is developed for its own sake without reference to its task, it is missing the mark. It puts itself on a par with the stupidity thatleads a man to undertake to play the piano for twenty-four hours withoutstopping. 

So many hours' scales per diem would be warranted to drive the spirit ofmusic to distraction: the utmost perfection in scales does not ofnecessity lead to any illuminating message. It cannot be too stronglyurged that the feeling and the emotion are the real things, and that theobject of technique is simply that these may be expressed in the bestand most intelligible manner. Indeed the artist himself is secondary inimportance to the message, it is the spirit that works in and throughhim that must ever come first. The true artist never seeks to obtrude, or to make his own personality the first thing. He will, of course, endeavour to make his technique fully equal to all demands that can bemade of him, but he will realise that he is doing his work in trust. "NoMAN ever did any great work yet: he became a free channel through whichthe eternal powers moved. "[11] In thus working the artist shines, asdoes the electric bulb, by reason of the unlimited power which accordingto his own measure may flow through him: and this limitless power may berelied upon to secure its own effect, if only the steward be faithful. 

[Note 11: Newlandsmith. "The Temple of Art. "]

Contrast the work done in this spirit with that accomplished under thestimulus of financial gain, or for the end of mere selfish display. Thelatter is a species of artistic prostitution. Superficially theperformances may seem something alike, the difference may be intangible, but it exists and is real. Time is ever the winnower. Things alwaysprove their survival value, that is to say the real things last, whilethe shams are sooner or later extinguished. It is necessary, no doubt, to make a living, no one will be so foolish as to overlook thiselementary fact: but the mere aim of making a living only too oftenobscures the actual meaning of life. Balanced and informed views of lifework, through a law of consonance, to ensure a corresponding equilibriumin the outer circumstances: in other words, if we seek first the innerKingdom, all these things, financial means and so forth, will be added. But there are thousands who drive for the financial and other incidentalends, and as a matter of fact miss the Kingdom entirely. To find thepersonal centre of gravity in the world is to master life, to fail tofind it is to be mastered by life. 

A performance that has self as its central motive can never ring true orachieve any lasting success. Inferior music may be decked out by acapable performer to sound impressive or pretentious, or be investedwith a glamour which is largely fictitious, but this surely amounts tofalse pretences. It is simply a method of misleading the public. Such aperformer has misconceived his function, which should be to act asinterpreter, guide, philosopher, and friend to those who follow hisefforts. What is to be said to the singer of royalty ballads? Here is avocalist who receives, maybe, two or three guineas for each dozen timeshe sings particular songs, the publisher of the song in question beinghis paymaster. Of this type of song a contemporary Musical Journalstates:--"Every serious musician knows it, and, scenting the boredom, tries to avoid it. It is highly sentimental, it moves within a limitedscope, emotionally and technically, and it deals with a few well-wornsubjects. Gardens, spring, sunshine, flowers--these are favouritethemes. If only, the singer tells us, he could have a cottage on thehillside, with honeysuckle round the door (this appears to be of greatimportance), heaven would indeed be there. " These MAY be compositions ofartistic worth, in which case financial gain and true musical interestconsort together: but on the other hand they may NOT. Which, then, is toreceive the first consideration? Is the artist to refuse the guineasbecause the ballad possesses no intrinsic worth, or is he to pocket thecash and deck out with all the devices of his Art the twopenny-ha'pennyshop-tune, and make it sound something like the real thing? No doubtunder these circumstances the song may achieve a certain measure ofappreciation. Some of the audience will buy it, and only when they cometo try it at home will they realise what feeble stuff it truly is. Theartist has been paid to betray those who trusted in him and followed histaste. In this he may have been eminently successful, but what is thevalue of such success? And what of Art--and Music?

Wherein is the particular glory of a top note, or the specific value ofa compass that extends a note-and-a-half beyond that of anyone else? Whyshould it be considered meritorious to be able to bang louder or toscramble more quickly over the keys than one's competitors? Yet we havecertainly met singers and players who gloried in such accomplishments. Aperformer may also know every device and trick of the trade, he may bewell aware of what will go down with his audience, he may play up to alltheir little foibles and weaknesses and give them exactly what theywant: we can indeed scarcely quarrel with this. But so many areapparently content to allow the matter to remain on this lowly level. Asinger who is thus able to play upon his audience and hold them in hisgrip can surely also lead them up to the appreciation of better things. 

An audience is normally receptive and impressionable, they comeexpecting to receive satisfaction and enjoyment for the money they haveexpended in the purchase of a ticket, or because they have some otherinterest in the proceedings. Presumably if they were not interested theywould not be there. This element of expectation stimulates theirreceptivity, and aids the performer in his work of giving out. Whateverthe audience receives, by the mere fact of its making some impression onthe delicate nerve-stuff of the brain, is retained and becomes actuallya part of them. Thus the artist is definitely building the minds of hisaudience: he is forming their taste, and giving them that material inmind which will enable them to enjoy and understand music the better forthe future. He is passing on the message according to his ability. Therefore that individual who is merely seeking for compass, technique, press notices, or his fee, shows that he has not appreciated theelements of his task. Being thus in search of all the things that reallydo not matter, he is putting himself into a position that will ensurehim a more or less comfortable mediocrity, provide he is lucky enoughto escape actual failure. 

We call to mind a press criticism that appeared in a first-class Londondaily newspaper, with reference to a singer quite unknown to fame. Itstated that "every note was pure joy. " Could one say anything finer thanthis, and would not anything added to it but serve to spoil it? Itepitomises what we have here been endeavouring to express. There couldbe no "pure joy" apart from spirit, and in giving this forth in song thesinger achieved the aim of Art. This joy would become part of the lifeof those who heard her, because it can never be too clearly understoodthat we are built of our memories, and though we seem to forget, yetthese memories are absolute. So the joy that the singer gave out went togladden the world, and that which she gave, paradoxically enough, remained with her. That which we express, by the record of thatexpression we tend to become. 

Herein the personality of the interpreter counts for much. The music, itis true, carries its own meaning and message, but this is reinforced bythe mediumship and the imagination of the performer. "Imagination is thelife of art. Why so many performers give such little pleasure and leavethe audience coldly critical is simply because their imagination is ofthe feeblest. "[12] Necessarily there is always a certain coloration fromthe mind which transmits the message, just as the tones of two violinsthough played by the same hand might be different. Moreover, as aresonant instrument would amplify the sound and an inferior one wouldhamper it, so a greater artist would interpret a message to more effectthan one less capable. The gramophone will give us the actual notes ofthe singer, but it depends upon ourselves as to whether we catch thereal thing or not. What is actually there is the shell: there is nopersonality unless we ourselves build up that personality of the singerin our imagination. We must supply that which the machine lacks, or elseperforce go without. When the artist is present in person we need noeffort of the imagination, and though the machine can give us a personalrendering it can never offer us the personality. In much the same waythe mechanical piano-player may give So-and-so's exact rendering if onlywe follow the requisite directions, but it is impossible for it to bethe same. Two things seem alike, but one is stuffed, and the otherhollow. 

[Note 12: Lancelot, in the "Referee. "]

Personality, then, must always be a vital factor since it colours andvitalises, as well as reinforces the meaning of the music. Spirit is afact, but a beautiful personality will invest it with all the glamour ofromance. The emotion may be "pure joy" but it needs a warm heart to giveit out to full effect to a coldish world. Consequently, for the beautyto shine through, the artist's personality must be finely wrought. Aselfish soul might sing a love-song, but a woman would not be taken inby it--unless she thought twice: it would not ring true enough. Beautylies in the heart of all worthy music, so the artist who studies it andlives in its atmosphere gradually builds that beauty into the life andthe character: the mere expression henceforth makes it part of himthrough memory. So, beautiful thoughts are needful food to the mind ofthe artist, and no amount of cleverness in the simulation of this orthat emotion will ever enable the same effect to be produced, as whenbeauty is reinforced by beauty. Personality counts beyond allcalculation. 

The music that is written shows whether its composer was an artist or amechanic in music. "The spirit of anything which a man makes, or does, is his nature expressed in those things, and the fineness or poorness ofhis work and actions depends upon the way in which he feels orthinks. "[13] The academic writer, steeped in his contrapuntal devicesand harmonic progressions, so intent upon the orthodox resolution of hisdiscords, is apt to produce excellent dry bones without the informingspirit. We have even heard it stated that no music publisher would deignto consider for publication a song manuscript with Mus. Doc. On thetitle page. Yet Parry's books of "English Lyrics" stand as permanenttestimony that scholarly music may also contain the emotional andspiritual elements to infuse it with abundant life: the pity is that thecombination is none too frequent. "A vast proportion of what is printedand sold as music... Is meaningless, and therefore worthless. "[14] Suchmusic as is composed, or selected, for popular consumption is franklywritten for this purpose of pot-boiling, and as such it settles its ownfate. We need waste no tears upon it. Nor need we devote muchconsideration to the sentimental ballads issued by the hundred, for "ifmusic has no further function than to appeal to the emotions, then it isnothing better than melodious nonsense. "[15] Of the dance and othermiscellaneous music issued broadcast some, no doubt, is genuine music, but the greater part of it is avowedly commercial in tone and intention:in any spiritual scale its weight is of the lightest. 

[Note 13: Leigh Henry. "Music. "]

[Note 14: Sir Henry Hadow. ]

[Note 15: Sir Henry Hadow. ]

The interpreter who works in collaboration with others, the choralsinger or the orchestral performer, should be bound by the same canonsof Art as the soloist. A chorus does not merely consist of a certainnumber of voices, any more than eleven football players constitute ateam. Even the footballers must have their technique and must play withtheir heads as well as their feet: but to ensure success they mustindividually have subordinated their personal interests to that of theteam, they must play in the spirit of the game. Equally so a choralsinger must first have the vocal ability, then the intelligence, andfurthermore the spiritual vision. His individual aims must also besubordinated in "team play, " so that collectively, as individually inthe case of the soloist, the purport of the music may find its dueexpression. 

The one point to be emphasised is that, in whatever capacity theexponent and interpreter of Art be concerned, the paramountconsideration must be the transmission of the artistic impulse. Peopledo not send telegrams flying about the country except for the purposeof conveying a message: in the absence of a message there is, naturally, no telegram. It would be a step in the right direction if it weregenerally recognised that Art-work should be based upon somewhat thesame substantial and bed-rock foundation. 

CHAPTER VII

THE TEACHER

"The teachers of this country have its future in their hands"

_William James_

Ideas on the subject of the teaching of Music are changing at such arapid rate to-day that the position of the teacher as an interpreter maywell receive some consideration. The study of psychology and the manynew discoveries in the realm of mind bid fair to revolutionise ourconception of teaching: the old standards are fast becoming obsolete. Once the idea of education was more or less to get something into thepupil, the newer ideal is to get something out: instead of compressionor repression the process is now regarded as one of expression. We aimat developing the latent faculties and exploiting the hidden resourcesof the mind. It is assumed that the various qualities and abilities areembodied in mind, just as the possibilities of the oak were implantedin the acorn: it is the function of the teacher to ensure the requisiteconditions under which these qualities may come to fruition. 

From this it is clear that the modern teacher is more occupied inteaching the pupil than the subject. The old method of grinding inscales, scales, and yet more scales until those scales had become secondnature is recognised as being worse than merely futile. What can itprofit a pupil if he gain the whole world of scales and lose hisartistic soul? So also with other points, the centre of attention istransferred from the subject to the pupil. Furthermore, the wise teacherrecognises that as music is a part of life, so the understanding ofmusic should lead to a larger comprehension of life. There are nowatertight compartments in our lives, everything is acted upon andreacts: all life is of a piece, and nothing comes out of the mind inexactly the same condition as it entered. Things become transformed andassimilated in the process of mental digestion. Consequently thediscerning teacher knows that he is working in terms of life through theagency of the music. He is helping to modify, form, or transform themind of the pupil through his memories, he is moulding his character:and his character weighs in the eternal scales. The teaching thusstands on a base that is wider than life itself, and such a teacher isinvested with a dignity and worth that can never attach to thetime-server or the crammer. 

The Royal Academy of Music gives the Licentiate diploma for (_a_)teachers and (_b_) performers: this is a technical distinction withoutany real difference. It is the function of both alike to reveal and topass on a message of spirit. The performer passes it on to an audienceof many, and the teacher to a little audience of one. Teachers are"artists to whom the most priceless material has been committed. "[16]There is an idea abroad that those who are not clever enough to performcan always take to teaching, but this is of course a lamentableperversion of the truth. There are diversities of gifts, but the samespirit, and certainly as high a degree of spiritual perception isnecessary for the teacher as for the executive artist. The teacher hasmerely chosen a different technique for its expression. Not so manyyears ago the teaching profession was known as "the refuge of thedestitute, " but we are changing all that with the revaluation of valueswhich is being forced upon us by the logic of events. In course of timethe old type of teacher must become as extinct as the dodo. 

[Note 16: Canon J. H. Masterman. ]

Effective teaching can never be done to pattern, for the simple reasonthat pupils are not machines or blocks of wood and cannot be turned outto sample. Every pupil is unique: he is the inheritor of a spirit whichis peculiarly his own, and of a body in its endowments and proportionsunlike that of anyone else, and in his nervous system he possessesspecial pre-dispositions and "potentially linked paths" which providehim with particular adaptabilities and traits. Were the teacher to treatevery pupil alike, his scheme would probably truly fit none of them: butas a matter of fact each one of them calls for insight and specialtreatment. So the teacher learns from every pupil, and the experiencegarnered from contact with the many phases of human nature renders hisjudgment the surer and his sympathy the more sound. But this, quiteobviously, is mind-moulding and character-building, with the emphasislaid upon the teaching of the pupil rather than the subject. 

The three generally accepted divisions of mind are (_a_) intellect;(_b_) feelings; and (_c_) will; and in these directions the teaching ofmusic should have far-reaching effects upon the culture and the outlook. Observation is the root of all mental growth: it supplies the mind withthe necessary food for development and expansion, and according to therange and definiteness of the evidence supplied by the senses, so is thefoundation laid for a good memory and a lively quality of imagination. The earliest lessons will thus be a stimulus to mental growth: the pupilwill learn to take in by the eye and the ear, and what he takes in willenable him to understand and to appreciate more and yet more. He will betaught that everything in music means something, and even exercises willbe invested with a meaning and a purpose of their own. Purely mechanicalwork has gone, never, we may hope, to return: and meaningless music isdiscarded in favour of that which expresses something. It may illustratea mood or an emotion, a scene, an action, or a fairy tale--it mattersnot what so long as it possesses a meaning to lend it point and purpose. So right from the beginning the action of the pupil will be theexpression of the emotions and ideas that hold sway in his mind. 

In this connection we may quote an actual instance. A teacherwrites:--"A young pupil (age 14) came for a lesson, playing Farjeon's'Prelude and Pavane. ' She had learnt the 'Prelude, ' and had had onelesson, a fortnight before, on the 'Pavane. ' We went through thetechnique, and I told her a little about the 'Pavane'--when it wasdanced, the derivation of the name, and so on. When she played it, sheplayed it very, very slowly, but quite correctly and finished in detail. I asked her if she liked it quite as slowly as that, and she repliedthat she thought 'the Court ladies with their long dresses would not beable to dance any quicker' and that it 'sounded grander very slowly. ' SoI left it. " This, we may add, is an illustration of method quoted by ateacher in a diploma Examination paper, but it aptly shows the newspirit. The teacher had no mind to force her own views upon the pupil. Had she insisted that the dance should be played more quickly, she mighthave spoiled the child's mental picture and destroyed her interest inthe piece. The incident also points the way in which the pupil'sobservation, imagination, and powers of deduction were being stimulated, so that, as we have been endeavouring to show, the music--of value forits own sake--was also ministering to the larger end of life-growth. 

The world of affairs and the world of education see to it that ourintellect and will are duly and properly brushed up, they exact theirpenalties in default from the stupid and the invertebrate, but thefeeling and emotional side of the nature is too often ignored. It isleft to develop by chance instead of being nurtured by design. As aconsequence a vast amount of distorted feeling exists in the world, anda very great deal of emotion is repressed. Music is at once a means ofcultivating the rightful feelings towards life, and an outlet for therepressed emotions. The interpreter recognises that his true function isto serve his day and his generation, and so he places this ideal ofService in the forefront of his vision. If he substitute Selfishness heis permanently wrongly adjusted to life, and nothing can go truly rightwith him. He is off the lines of his spiritual evolution, and Naturewill take pains to impress the fact upon him: she has her larger visionto which he must, willy-nilly, conform. The teacher, in handing on thetorch, will thus be able at the very outset to point to this ideal ofService, exemplified in finding out the beauty or the meaning of themusic, and in passing it on for the benefit of others in song or sound. 

Repressed emotions are now recognised as a potent source of trouble, both mental and physical. In the adolescent stage of youth vital forcessurge through the body, they are perhaps indefinable but they are nonethe less potent. "The emotions are there, and it is for us to find theway in which we can best turn them upward: the time has passed when weneed or can deny their existence, or their expression. "[17] Theseemotions cannot be permanently repressed, they are too deeply embeddedin the self: they may find an outlet in the amours of youth, or in someother way. But music offers a means and a channel through which theseemotions may flow in useful direction, and this is a most valuableservice. Failing legitimate expression they not infrequently find aninappropriate or distorted outlet. There is discord within, and it isfar better that the discord should be resolved harmoniously rather thanill, or not at all. The study of music at this period may thus result inmarked benefit to the physical health in a perfectly natural manner: forto forbid any expression to these emotions would be much as if weforbade a canary to sing or a lambkin to jump. If they can be reflectedin "pure joy" in song we may indeed be sure that the outlet they arefinding is a happy one. The subject is a very important one, but itleads us far afield from the present scheme. The reader who isinterested may find further treatment of this topic in the presentwriter's "The Hidden Self, and its Mental Processes. "

[Note 17: Ernest Hunt. "The Hidden Self. "]

The modern teacher has progressed beyond the stage of imposing his ownstandard of judgment upon the pupil. By introducing the element ofmusical appreciation and making the pupil familiar with a wide range ofmusical ideas, he will gradually build up his power of discriminationand judgment and his standard of taste. These are no fixed things, butwill grow as the experience of the pupil himself grows. As his sympathyand insight also increase, so will his knowledge of the good and evil ofmusic progress. This is a vastly different process to any arbitraryenforcement of "this is good and that is bad" standards, and indeed itis but a poor compliment to any teacher when we find pupil after pupil amore or less complete imitation of the same original. 

One thing that is conspicuously lacking in the world to-day is theability to be one's self. Suggestion and habit are ever at work to killoriginality and to stifle self-reliance and initiative. Thousands cancopy, few can invent. The reason may be that only the few are able andwilling to go to the fountain-head of spirit, where there is theinfinite variety of universal thought to be their inspiration. The manyare content to live their teachers' ideas over and over again, buildingtheir lives and abilities on quite ordinary models in a quite ordinaryway. In music we already possess far too many "dittos, " dittoprogrammes, ditto compositions, ditto renderings, and ditto ideals. Praise the Lord for originality wherever it may be found. Theconventional goes round and round in a circle, like a puppy after itsown tail: but originality rises at each revolution and so reaches on andup, in progress like a spiral. So to-day the teacher fostersoriginality, shaping it with kindly criticism or helpful suggestion, butnever damning it with a fatal "don't. " Education's maxim to-day is "Do;but do better next time. "

In this larger view of teaching, the technique, though not despised andrejected, is relegated to its proper place in the scheme of things. Thecult of the head and the heart predominates, and the whole course of theinstruction is an integral part of the training for life. If it be truethat we are making "houses built without hands, for our souls to livein, " then music is determining no small part of the architecture for thestudent who follows the gleam. The inspired teacher (and, without thevision, teaching must ever be the veriest drudgery) is engaged upon oneof the noblest of tasks as well as one of the most responsible. We mayeven hope that one day the world will awaken to this fact. Incidentallyteachers themselves, by thinking more nobly of their tasks, can do muchto dignify their calling. They are truly in the van of progress, and"with the power of the Spirit almost untried and the possibilities ofPrayer as little known, with the inheritance of Love still unclaimed andthe ocean of Truth yet unexplored, life is full of an immensity ofpurpose. "[18]

[Note 18: Kirkham Davis. "Where dwells the Soul Serene. "]

CHAPTER VIII

THE SOUL OF SONG

 "All the hearts of men were softened By the pathos of his music: For he sang of peace and freedom, Sang of beauty, love, and longing: Sang of death, and life undying In the Islands of the Blessed, In the Kingdom of Ponemah, In the land of the Hereafter. "

 _Longfellow_

The power to sing is innate in practically everybody, and the number ofpeople who are actually incapable of any musical expression through thevoice is really very small. Suggestion plays an important part in thismatter, for there are few children having mothers or nurses who sing tothem who fail to pick up and imitate that singing. The reason is fairlyclear, because every idea in mind tends to pass into action unlesssomething intervenes to stop it: consequently the child having the ideaof singing in mind, simply from having heard others sing, has theinitial impulse to song. As he gradually acquires the control andco-ordination of his faculties, song will follow as a matter of course. On the other hand if the child never hears anyone sing, from where isthe motor impulse to come?

Those good people who boast that they cannot sing have very often, bythe simple denial of their ability, ensured a kind of mental atrophy inthe function. It is quite a usual thing for us to fasten unnecessarylimitations upon ourselves by refusing to believe in our own powers, andmost of us have a large stock of very real inhibitions, which prevent usfrom doing things otherwise well within our capacity. If we do notbelieve we can do a thing, as a rule we do not try: or if we try, it isin a half-hearted, beaten-before-we-start kind of fashion. Thus we findthat as a matter of experience things generally do turn out for usaccording to our belief. It is in this spirit that a man professeshimself unable to tell the difference between the National Anthem and"Pop goes the Weasel. " There are cases, of course, where the individualmay be able to distinguish the tunes mentally, and yet may be unable tosing them correctly, or even to vary the tones of the voice according tothe desired pattern: in this case the fault probably lies in a lack ofthe power of co-ordinating the various activities. The necessaryassociations between the hearing centres and the motor centres for thecontrol of voice have not been built up. But they can be so built, andthen the inability to sing vanishes. A person who can speak has thenecessary machinery for song, and to say that one has "no voice" ismostly nonsense. 

Many people possess quite good voices until they learn singing. Theirnatural aptitude, which so largely depends upon the models they may havehad for imitation in the earliest days, is possibly quite excellent. Then comes the Voice Specialist on the scene with his pet theories forimproving upon Nature, and he gets busy. He may have his ideas upon"breaks, " registers, and a thousand other details. Perhaps he haswritten a book on the way in which Nature has made a botch of the voice, creating it in a number of sections like a fishing rod, specially toprovide an interesting and lucrative profession for the voice trainer. On the other hand he may be wise enough to thank Heaven when he finds agood natural voice, and leave it alone. Voices when naturally used havebeauty, ease, compass, and an even tone without break throughout: this, we assert, in spite of the fact that many a famous contralto possessesapparently two voices, so marked is the break. There is a technicalalteration of the working of the vocal chords at a certain pitch, butwith a rightly-used voice this is automatic and unfelt: the whole bodyis full of such wonderful adjustments. To be called upon to dealconsciously with such details is generally proof that they have gonewrong. Your attention to your digestion is enforced by dyspepsia: nobodynotices a perfectly acting digestion. 

Some voices are expressive and carry emotion easily, while others arehard and inelastic. Some correspondence in the temperament will nearlyalways be found. Therefore the teacher who works at the voice (which isa means of expression of the temperament) without touching the innercharacteristics, is like the man who tries to make an ill-regulatedclock keep time by altering the hands. Lack of tone colour is not to becured by cultivating a number of different sizes and shapes for themouth and a selection of assorted smiles for the features. If a personfeels sad, he will talk sadly. Carrying the same principle into song, wefind that a voice naturally shows the timbre appropriate to the mood. Therefore in order to ensure proper tone colour the prime requisite isimagination and the ability vividly to call up and experience thevarious emotions. It will be evident that we are endeavouring to impartinto vocal work precisely those same principles which we assert to befundamental to the whole of music, namely--the importance of the idea asbehind, distinct from, and manifested through, the technical means. Thevocal machinery must necessarily be in first-class order, but theinfluence of the mind upon the body is so intimate and so extraordinarythat even technical acquirement hangs to no small extent upon mentalworking. 

Seeing that song, then, is to be the vehicle for emotion, even thoughthat emotion be so tenuous as almost to defy verbal expression, for themost part we ally words and music. The timbre of a voice, singing toneswithout words, might carry a message to the sensitive, just as theinflection of a voice may be exquisite joy or suffering to a lover: butit would be insufficient to move the average hearer to any response. Thereason is that there is always a dual process at work in mind: there isthe sense-perception of the actual sound, and a brain-recognition of itsmeaning. This latter must be supplied by the hearer himself from his ownimagination or experience. The non-musical multitude has neither, and istherefore unable to complete this second process of recognition. Thusthe hearer hears, but does not understand. It is probably for some suchreason as this that we resort to words to make the message clear. Hereinlies the importance of the words themselves, and of the diction of thesinger. 

Quite notoriously, many singers entirely fail to make their wordsintelligible to the listener, and in the majority of cases this is dueto insufficient stressing of the consonants. Vowel tones carry, whileconsonants do not. If we want to shout to anyone we call out "Hi" or"Hey": never by any chance do we try to reach them with a "P-p-p-p-p" ora "T-t-t-t-t, " and for precisely this reason. If, therefore, a singerwishes his words to carry to the end of the hall he must needsexaggerate his consonants to allow for this loss in transit: the vowelswill look after themselves. Then, although the balance of the words asthey are uttered may be a trifle distorted, they will nevertheless reachthe hearers in due proportion. Comfort in listening is greatly increasedwhen this sense-perception is clear and unambiguous, and thebrain-recognition is easy by reason of a certain familiarity. When thesense-perception is blurred, as in faulty diction, extra work is thrownon to the brain: listening then becomes a strain, and the brain isfatigued with supplying the details which it supposes the singer tohave intended. The listener has, as it were, to put in his consonantsfor him, to dot his "i's" and cross his "t's. "

Some singers distort their vowel sounds almost beyond recognition, andmany pupils seem to be definitely taught to adopt the habit. Then "and"becomes "awnd, " and the various words take on new disguises after thereputed Oxford model of "He that hath yaws to yaw, let him yaw. " Singingis but glorified speech, it is not a thing apart, neither is there onelanguage of the speaker and another of the vocalist. This distortion maybe due to affectation or to ignorance, but in either case we could welldo without it. In cases where the actual production of the voice ismechanically stiff, rigid, and therefore distorted, it is not likelythat we can secure a free and flexible musical elocution. We dooccasionally meet singers whose diction is delightful to hear because ofits absolute freedom and complete naturalness, but these only serve toheighten by their excellence the shortcomings of the many. 

Consideration of the manner in which the words are put forth leads us tothe matter of the words themselves. It is difficult to find even amodicum of meaning, to say nothing of spirit, in much of the verse thatachieves musical setting to-day. A critic in a London Daily some timeback inquired if all our native poets were paralysed, the query beingsuggested by an examination of a representative batch of songs. But thepoet is hardly to blame for the present state of affairs. In the weddingof words and music, the usual routine is for the author of the lyric tosubmit his effort to the composer for his consideration. The composerwill neither select nor waste his time in setting the better class ofverse because, as he says, the publishers will not look at it. Thepublishers will not print and issue it because, so they say, the publicwill not purchase it. The public might very well retort that they getprecious little chance to listen to it, since royalty ballads comefirst: nor to come in contact with it, for the ordinary dealer does notstock it. There, then, is the vicious circle quite complete. But thepoets are not paralysed, they are merely inarticulate by reason of thiscommercialisation of Art. At the best of times the average lyric authorhas a difficult and somewhat heart-breaking task to dispose of hiswares, and we need not further harrow his artistic soul by suggestionsof literary impotence. 

It must, however, be admitted that on the whole there is anextraordinary poverty and bareness of idea and inspiration in thegeneral run of songs: neither Nature nor Love are themes that can everbe finally exhausted while human nature remains as it is, but thetreatment can be so stereotyped that it eventually wears threadbare. Itis possible to become thoroughly weary of roses and gardens, and gardensof roses, gardens without roses, and gardens where we hope there will beroses. It is such a pity, too, that there are so few rhymes to "love. "Yet even in dissatisfaction there exists the element of progress: if weare bored with the present style we shall demand something better, andthe demand will create the supply. But to swing from bareness andboredom to the other extreme of abstruseness and complexity is noremedy: in these latter qualities there exists no special compensatingvirtue. Listening to a song as it is sung is very different to readingthe verse at leisure. The sense of the song must be caught as it flies, the verse can be read and re-read if necessary, until its meaning beclear. It is no progress, therefore, to worship the turgid and obscure, whether in words or music, or both. We may pretend that we appreciatethings because we cannot understand them, but that is only a concessionto convention and a convenient way of smothering artistic conscience. 

Of late an outcry has arisen, on the part of wise men in exaltedstation, about "beastly tunes, " but surely if a tune can attainsufficient popularity to earn the picturesque adjectives of theacademic, there must be some element in it which has escaped theattention of its detractors. The Southern Syncopated Orchestra, whichplayed for some lengthy period in London a little while back, showedthat popular music might yet be extremely clever and artistic in scopeand performance. There were high-brow musicians who would not even go tolisten to such, but preferred to condemn it unheard: the loss wasemphatically that of the high-brows. Humour abounded in this little bandof performers on such a strange array of instruments, and it appeared asif the players enjoyed their work no less, at any rate, than theiraudience. Yet their programme was full of "tunes. " Is any tune in itself"beastly"? Or is it that the brain-recognition, to which we havealluded, decks out the tune in sordid or sweet trappings according toits own nature? We certainly know that in other directions we are apt tosee things according to the colour of our own mental vision. 

These tunes, however, that have become so popular, have the threeessentials of music strongly marked: they have decided rhythm, attractive melody, and harmony at times quite good. Are we to try andattract the multitude to music by muddling up or emasculating rhythm, orby eschewing melody and banishing anything that intrigues the ear, andby supplying an harmonic scheme that awakens no brain-recognition andcannot in consequence be understood? Well, the conventional suburbanitemay gush over such indeterminate and invertebrate music, saying, "Yes, isn't it just too lovely, " but the rough and tumble individuals who makeup most of the world will plump for the "tune" every time. Give him whathe wants, and then induce him to want something better, but avoid themistake of trying to turn him into a musical vegetarian while hismeat-eating appetite has no liking for the diet. 

The incongruity of some of the songs we hear sung is truly appalling: wefind a charming maid, love for whom might honour any man yet born, singing "Less than the dust, ... Even less am I, " and so on. Lies, alllies, even though she lie melodically with charm and with apparentconviction. We have passionate love-songs sung by guileless individualswho would be inexpressibly shocked if you explained to them the meaningof the sentiment to which they had been giving utterance. There areoperatic scenas, dealing with abduction and all sorts of uncomfortablesituations, and again youngsters declaim of their somewhat indecorousemotions with gusto and--let us hope--a sublime insensibility of allthat they imply. They are warbling words to music, but they are notsinging, for the meaning is not there. The fault, of course, lies in thetraditional idea that all aspiring vocalists must learn certain things, just as that all pianists should go through a corresponding round ofinstrumental compositions. Why should they? Many of these classicalexamples that we accept as the right things to sing or play arehopelessly antiquated and out of date: they would not stand a chance asnew compositions to-day. Antiquity itself is only a recommendation if weare collectors of curios. The literature of Art is far too comprehensivefor anyone to study it all, we can but touch a fragment of the whole:why, then, should that fragment be determined by tradition and customalone? Will anybody's clothes fit me: am I not likely to secure a betterfit by being measured for my own? And why should not the sameconsideration apply to my mental outfit? It is the same desperate fearof originality and initiative, coupled with a certain unwillingness totake individual responsibility: it is the "ditto" idea again, and yet awriter has said "imitation is suicide. " Let music be studiedhistorically and in its development, by all means, this indeed isnecessary: but to spend hours and hours learning to play or singsomething just because "everybody does it" is the sheerest waste oftime, unless the music so played or sung still bears a living messagefor the performer. 

Protest might also be registered against the unadulterated rubbish thatis put forward as a translation when a song or operatic excerpt offoreign origin is rendered in English. Of grand opera even the _DailyTelegraph_ is moved to say that "the translations are in most casesliterary nightmares. " Mere baldness might be excused, and even doggereloverlooked, but one has only to turn to almost any of the currentstandard translations of foreign songs to see that the matter is worsethan this. To expect a student to get up and participate in this verbalfoolishness and ineptitude, by endeavouring to express as genuine thebalderdash that poses as sentiment and sense, is an insult to his or herintelligence. 

Finally there remains the "graveyard" school of composition. Here wehave the author or composer, or both of them, seeing the world muchworse than it is, and think that they do Art a service by putting theirrealistic conceptions on permanent record. We would join issue with allthe various methods--song, literature, drama, and painting--of givingthe unpleasant a wider and more effective publicity. The suggestivenature of all of these negative things cannot be overlooked, andshould not be underestimated. The Biblical advice is to the point:"Whatsoever things are true, lovely, and of good report: think onthese. " The graveyard and realistic schools reverse this sage precept, saying, in effect, "Whatsoever things are nasty, unwholesome, anddisagreeable--make the most of them: they will always appeal to acertain section whose minds are correspondingly unpleasant. " We preferthe "pure joy" gospel, as being nearer the truth: for spirit is everpointing the vision upward to what we may become, instead of allowing itto grovel around in the very unpleasant circumstances in which somepeople are liable to find themselves. The outward vision is transient, the inner vision can build eternal realities. "Are we to beg and cringeand hang on the outer edge of life, --we who should walk grandly? Is itfor man to tremble and quake--man who in his spiritual capacity becomesthe interpreter of God's message, --the focus of Divine Light?"[19]

[Note 19: Kirkham Davis, "Where dwells the Soul Serene. "]

CHAPTER IX

MUSIC AND EDUCATION

"Music is not only a source of noble pleasure--everyone admitsthat, at any rate in theory--it is a form of intellectual andspiritual training with which we really cannot afford to dispense"

_Sir Henry Hadow_

We may agree that education consists in the bringing of the latentpossibilities of the individual into action, and one of the mostimportant parts in the process of education is played by memory. Thefact that memory places on record our first impression of a thing is thereason why we are able to recognise it on the second occasion: otherwisewe should have to make its acquaintance afresh every time. It is memoryagain which enables us to retain the mental pattern of an action we haveonce performed, and so to do it the more easily a second time, and onsubsequent occasions. Thus we see that everything we express, whether inword, thought, or deed, leaves its mark within us: this impress is, asit were, a brick in our life's edifice, and it has added something tothat disposition of mind which constitutes our character. 

Mental growth is thus profoundly influenced by the things we express, for whatever we express forthwith becomes part of ourselves. Anything, therefore, that teaches us to express the fine, the noble, or thebeautiful, leaves the self by the fact of that expression with theimpress of that fineness, nobility, or beauty henceforth in thecharacter. We do not mean that by the utterance of a praiseworthysentiment a man at once grows estimable, but we do mean that thesentiment according to its intrinsic value and worth has become anelement in his make-up. We observe every day in the contrary directionthat giving vent to continual complaint soon makes a person growsour-minded: and incidentally it also makes him grow sour-visaged. It isfrequently possible to tell a man's philosophy from his countenance. Those whose efforts are devoted to preaching a violent discontent seemto run to type, acquiring a discontented kind of countenance to matchtheir views. Equally so a person whose outlook is more balanced, andwhose character is gentler, will gradually inscribe a finer type ofcharacteristic both in mind and body. The case is very much the samewith Art. Those to whom Art stands for beauty and love must necessarilybe building themselves of their thoughts, and so be tending towardstheir ideal. Thus so far as music becomes the expression of spirit andlove, so far its influence upon the individual is permanent andprogressive in these directions. 

Apparent exceptions will at once spring to mind, and we may ask whymusicians as a class do not stand out specifically as more spiritualthan their fellows. There are many reasons. Not all musicians pursuetheir calling with insight and understanding: mere perfunctoryperformance has the effect of influencing in the direction of thecommonplace and the casual, and music is never the sole influence atwork, and not always the chief. The character is the result, on balance, of ALL the forces that have played their part, just as the annualbalance on profit and loss account represents the net result of all thetransactions that have taken place. Unless the spiritual forces at workin an individual's life outweigh the material, the net result will stillbe on the side of the latter, even though he may have had music in hissoul. 

When we look at the adolescent of to-day, particularly the town-bredyouth of from sixteen to twenty years, we may well ask what opportunityhe gets for the expression of any theme of beauty, or for anyimpression of the like. The mind has a kind of breathing motion, as havethe lungs: it takes in, stores up and assimilates, and then expresses. Education must allow for both processes. But our youthful friend hasleft school, and is probably engaged in some more or less strenuous workwhich brings him into the closest contact with grown men. From these hederives most of his inspiration: much of it is highly coloured, and someof it is certainly degrading. He does not read, and so knows nothing ofthe inspiration of literature, and the past is to him a closed book. Hecomes across nothing artistic, and he hears no concerts. He never goesto church, and you can see him by the thousand loafing about in anylarge town on a Sunday. "The modern townsman... Has forgotten the habitsand sentiments of the village from which his forefathers came. Anunnatural and unhealthy mode of life, cut off from the sweet andhumanising influences of nature, has produced an unnatural and unhealthymentality, to which we shall find no parallels in the past. Its chiefcharacteristic is profound secularity or materialism. The typical townartisan has no religion and no superstitions: he has no ideals beyondthe visible and tangible world of the senses. "[20]

[Note 20: W. R. Inge. ]

There is, however, one thing that our young friend does: he sings. Wesee him, in company with three or four of his fellows, marching alongthe street singing the latest music-hall ditty, with all the approvedmusic-hall inflections and mannerisms. Sometimes the group will beaccompanied by one of their companions on a mouth organ, andoccasionally they will attain to the dignity of two-, or even three-partsinging. Now and again we find them "throwing back" to the days ofHucbald the Fleming, and running their harmony in a kind of diaphony afifth below the melody. But they sing because they like to sing. Theidea naturally suggests itself that if more firms and works would assistin making provision for brass bands, string orchestras, and choralsocieties among their employees, the music would prove to be ahumanising agency of the greatest value. Especially would this be thecase if some of the higher officials of the firm, not even excluding thedirectors, would join on a footing of musical equality with the rest. The aloofness of class is a potent cause of misunderstanding, but Artknows nothing of social distinctions. If we knew more of each other weshould probably fight a good deal less, and it is just here that thepower of music might be used in healing fashion. 

On one occasion in a suburban district, outside a branch of the Y. W. C. A. On a Sunday evening, we stopped to listen to some excellentpart-singing, and we could not help thinking what an educative influenceit would surely prove in the lives of the music-makers. We could wishthat such opportunities were more generally available. The provision ofMunicipal facilities, which would cost very little, would probably be amost sound investment. But everything would in such case hinge upon theconductor: mere perfunctory work at the husk of music would quickly damnany such scheme. In addition it would do definite harm by creating apermanent distaste for music in the minds of those who first wereattracted. Something has, of course, been done in the way of providingorgan recitals and so on, but we are here suggesting that the workingclasses should be provided with the chance of being their ownmusic-makers. The use of a room, a fee to the conductor, and possibly asmall grant towards the cost of music would be all that was necessary, but who can tell what might be the result in harmony and good feeling?

Folk dances, and the singing of old folk tunes, as taught in theelementary schools, are of great value. There is a grace and poetry ofmovement about some of the children thus taught, which is engaging inthe extreme. Nor can this be without its reflex action upon the mind ofthe child. When taught to move easily and to express fluently in poseand gesture, the child will have acquired some tendency towards acorresponding facility of expression in other directions. According tothe songs chosen the singing itself provides outlet for the emotions, and stimulates imaginative play. The prosaic life and surroundings ofthe slum child are sufficiently deadening, and the new mental picturesthus given are in the nature of windows opening on new vistas of life. They suggest views that could come to the child mind in perhaps no otherway. The finer type of patriotism can be encouraged by such songs asParry's "England" (John o' Gaunt's Verse), and the more spiritualelement by the same composer's "Jerusalem" (words by Blake); while as anexample of the imaginative scene we might mention Dr. Wood's "TheKnight's Tomb. " Regarding the simpler type of song, we recall the caseof an Inspector of Music in Schools who was moved, almost to tears, bythe rendering of "Will ye no come back?" by a class of children who hadbeen taught by a truly inspired instructress. A dull teacher, and thereare too many, does frequently damp and quench the fires that should befanned; and the personal element is an enormous factor in thesituation. 

The mental and intellectual value of music should by no means beoverlooked. The mental alertness developed by sight-reading is of muchimportance. Some children are slow thinkers, and react lethargically: asa class, country children are mentally much slower than town-bredyoungsters. A city child quickly has to learn to look after himself, andto make his own decisions on the spur of the moment, and consequentlyhis mental processes are more fluent than those of the bumpkin type. Butanything that can be done to accelerate this reaction time is so muchadded to the efficiency of the individual. Sight-reading, we believe, possesses a special value in this direction. Singing at sight is also ameans of developing the co-ordination of the various faculties. Thereare numbers of people who know things ought to be done, and yet fail todo them. In the case of sight-singing, the mental picture has to beimmediately translated into action, it is the essence of the proceeding. The child is thus developing not only the mental faculties, but is alsoacquiring increased power of regulation and co-ordination, through thetraining of the faculties of the cerebellum. 

It is now becoming generally recognised that the interest of the youngin music may be expressed in intellectual and emotional enjoyment, andnot only instrumentally and vocally. In other words we realise that goodlisteners and appreciative understanders of music are, in their way, asessential as executants. "Shocking as it may seem, hundreds of children'learn music' for the length of their school life and never hear amasterpiece, and indeed, hear no music at all except such as their ownuntrained musical sense and half-trained fingers can compass. "[21] Inincreasing measure the teaching of music appreciation is coming intovogue, and as an aid to this the piano-player and gramophone aredemonstrating their value. The slogan of the musical advance guard is "agramophone in every school. " Teachers who are competent to givefirst-class expositions of the classics in schools are naturally few andfar between, and it would be impossible for even the first-class, withthe best will in the world, to cover a range in any way commensuratewith that which can be reached mechanically. Therefore the mechanicalpiano-player with a constant change of rolls, and the gramophone withits ever-increasing list of records, are adjuncts to education which areat present only in the stage of small beginnings. They possessdrawbacks and disadvantages, of course, but these are far outweighed bythe many solid points that tell in their favour. 

[Note 21: Percy Scholes. "Everyman and his Music. "]

The standard of musical accomplishment to be found in the variousschools is of very wide range. In the elementary schools there is acertain uniformity of scheme, if not of achievement. But in the PublicSchools, and in the preparatory schools which act as feeders to them, there is no uniformity of scheme, and the range of achievement is from avery great deal to just nothing at all. Too much depends upon theindividual outlook of the Headmaster. If he be musical, then the musicprospers: but if he be not interested in the subject, then the musiclanguishes accordingly. This is not rational. Either music has its valueas an educational subject, in which case it ought to be in thecurriculum independent of the vagaries of the Headmaster for the timebeing; or else it has no educational value, and should never be there. Whims in such a matter are out of place: but they are nevertheless toooften a deciding factor. In many schools music is frankly regarded as anuisance, a sort of frilling that is inappropriate to the rigid textureof education. It touches the emotions, and the Public School man has ahorror of being even so much as suspected of having emotions. 

The average net result is that music has been tolerated rather thanencouraged, and most often the boy who elects to study music has to doso at the expense of his playtime. Class singing is sometimes taken inthe regular school hours, but more often not. The consequence is that itis frequently regarded as a grind and a bore: an attitude scarcelyconducive to any appreciation of its inner significance. Again, theinfluence of the Music Master is of extraordinary importance: hissubject is identified in the boy mind with himself, and if the master benot respected for his own personality, then the music suffers inprecisely that degree. A fine influence can be trusted to make itselffelt in every circumstance, though perhaps battles may have to be foughtbefore victory is achieved, and if the musician has grasped thefundamentals of his Art, and realises that it is not so much himself asthe spirit that works through him, then the work that he can do both formusic and for his little musicians is beyond all price. 

In one Public School with which we were closely acquainted the standardof music was extremely high. The "Head" had his own ideas, whichoccasionally came out in unexpected guise. For example, every Sundaymorning there was a choir-practice before Chapel for the non-singers. This, of course, is a contradiction in terms, but an effective procedurein reality. All the boys who were not in the choir had to attend apractice for the musical part of the service, while the choir had theprivilege of a free time. There was no grievance about this, and it wastaken simply as a matter of routine. Further, in addition to the usualShields that were won and kept for the year by the various competing"Houses, " for cricket, football, sports, cross-country running, etc. , there was a "House-singing Shield. " This was competed for by the varioushouses, each of which had to put up an S. A. T. B. (four-part) choir. Thecompetition consisted in the singing; of a compulsory glee, chosen bythe authorities some months in advance, and a voluntary part-songselected by the competing choir. Both were to be sung withoutaccompaniment. If the house-master happened to be musical he generallyundertook the training of the choir: but if he were not, then a head boytook it on. The standard achieved was, as a rule, remarkably good. Atthe time of which we speak there were five competing houses in a schoolof some two hundred boys, and this means that in the school there werefive complete four-part choirs capable of singing an unaccompaniedpart-song. Practically every boy belonged to one or other of thechoirs, for marks were added to the total in proportion as the number ofboys singing rose, as compared with the total number in the house. 

We cite this case from our own experience in order to show what hasactually been accomplished in the way of fostering the love of music inone Public School. We are aware that this standard would appear entirelyvisionary to the authorities of some other schools: there are some towhom the idea of one choir singing in two parts seems more than ispracticable. But when music is recognised as an integral part ofeducation, as it used to be in Greece, then we may look forward to adifferent standard indeed. We may also recognise that unless educationitself pays some attention to the emotional and feeling side of life, itis leaving neglected an element which has no little to do with nationalstability and sanity, since these can only be grounded upon themanifestation of spirit in love and service. 

CHAPTER X

THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT

"Conventions mean very little to the artist, becauseconventionality arises either from mental laziness or fear of whatothers will say and think. Moreover the true genius must ever havethe capacity to feel deeper love and emotions than the man in thestreet"

Eaglefield Hull

We frequently hear the "artistic temperament" referred to in ordinaryconversation as if it were some kind of a vice, a mental aberration or adisease: and it is certainly doubtful whether those who so casuallydiscuss the subject have any clear idea as to what constitutes thisparticular equipment. That no great work of artistic merit can beaccomplished in its absence is more or less tacitly agreed, but it maybe interesting to consider in what this essential basis of artisticsuccess consists. 

We have before pointed out that the function of an interpreter is to actas a link between the spiritual and the material: he is the prophet toreveal the otherwise hidden message. The interpreter is the artist, andthe artist is the interpreter. The ability to come into contact with thefiner things, tangible or intangible, is simply a capacity of responsefiner than normal. A trained sense-perception is more acute than anon-trained: and quite apart from training there are very widedivergences in the innate range of activity of the various senses. Again, keen interest and attention tend to make a particular sense morealert, and even to extend the boundaries of its response. A man who isparticularly interested in some maiden's voice or footstep will be ableto make correct distinctions which simply do not exist for anyone lessactively interested in that particular lady. Concentration enables anysense to become more acute. This increased acuteness naturally gives itspossessor the power to receive impressions which would otherwise escaperecord. In the sense of not being usual, this acute sensitiveness of theartist is thus an abnormality: but it is only a variation in thedirection of progress, for the whole story of the evolutionary climb uplife's ladder is one of ever-increasing sensibility and response. Theartistic temperament is thus, in essence, a phase of evolution somewhatin advance of its day. 

Any departure from the normal, even though it be in the forwarddirection and carrying with it certain privileges, yet entails itsdisadvantages. The man who breaks out is generally made to pay prettydearly for his temerity: but, if there were none to advance and thusbreak out, civilisation itself would stagnate and there could be noprogress. The artist, the dreamer, the visionary, the poet, the genius, these all are the advance guard of humanity. As such they frequentlyreceive the pioneers' scanty reward, but their eyes are scarcely fixedupon mundane munificence, already their scale of values is a spiritualone. But it is just these delicate, sensitive folk, susceptible to thegossamer impulses that would never even ruffle the surface of theaverage man's mind, who are open to the urge of spirit and responsive toits "drive. " So they answer to the helm and steer out into the unknown, while the more sleek, comfortable, and well-fed do not so much as guessthat there has been any impulse at all. "H'm, " say the corpulent, "whycan't they leave well alone and be comfortable?" But it is no part ofthe great plan that the wheels of progress should ever slow down, it ismuch more to the point that they should be made to turn more quickly. Spirit is the force behind evolution, the force that makes the acornunfold into the oak, and it is the urge of spirit which compels man tounfold his own divinity. 

The artistic temperament, then, is the super-sensitive, and by this veryvirtue it creates its own difficulties. The artist is too responsive, too widely responsive unless he knows how to safeguard himself. Natureherself in her thousand moods plays upon the sensitive mind: she mouldsit with her beauties, leads it out into the open with the call of thewild, or terrifies it with the grandeur of her anger. The artist repliesto the appeal of beauty, but is seared with the degradation of uglinessor the sordid. He is thrilled with love, and wounded to the core byhatred. He responds to praise, but is depressed by sneers to a degreewhich the ordinary man is unable to comprehend. Thus his daily life ispierced with a thousand exquisite emotions to which your well-fedplebeian is stranger indeed. He lives on more exalted heights and yetsinks to inconceivably greater depths. Life truly consists more in ourwealth of impression than in the length of our days, and therefore theartist lives at greater intensity, and consequently with a greaternervous wear and tear. 

This sensitiveness is more easily moved to tears, since it is in essencemore feminine than masculine, being more a matter of the heart than thehead: but because of this element of the feminine it partakes more ofthe magnetic temperament than the electric. It possesses to a greaterdegree the capacity for holding on. Thus the sensitive artist, for thesake of his ideal, will peg away at the forlorn hope, and, sustained bythe spirit, may bring off the thousand-to-one chance. He has thecapacity to endure to the end, while the man without this "drive" willweigh things up, eventually playing for safety and, incidentally, comfort. Our friend of the artistic temperament will be acutelysympathetic, and thus an easy prey for the importunate: he may even giveeverything away and so have nothing for himself. The world will furnishhim with countless opportunities both of great joy and bitter grief, sothe readings of the temperament-chart of the artist will be apt toresemble the variations of a barometer when changeable weather is about. Genius is thus as a rule variable to the verge of the irrational. 

Erratic as it may seem to the ordinary person, the vision of the artistis often inherently near the truth. His sensitiveness enables him to seethis "more of truth, " even if it becloud his vision occasionally withmundane perversions. He possesses his own standards, and when theseconflict with the conventional it is convention that must be sacrificed. Thus the conventional mind brands the artistic temperament as immoral. But morality is not absolute, it is conventional and relative: we donot, as once, punish the sheep-stealer with the gallows nor the hereticwith red-hot irons, for our standards have changed with the years. Soalso do they vary with our locality: what is right in this place iswrong over the border. The vision of the artist sees beyond theformularies to the substance, and so he is prepared to brave criticismfor his stand upon what he knows to be true. 

Love and beauty call to him with other meaning than they bear to theprosaic and self-satisfied, and so he answers to the call of affectionwhen perhaps it would have been better for his peace of mind thatcaution and prudence should have held sway. But again it is an openquestion whether the man who follows the gleam, with inspiration tobeckon him, does not come nearer to the truth than the man ofcalculating caution who sums up and weighs. Sometimes crabbed age awakesto the realisation that the cocksure aim of youth is on occasion nearerto the mark than the aim directed by cold intellect, plotted out on adiagram, and worked out correct to three places of decimals. It isperfectly possible for the cautious and orthodox pedestrian to spend somuch time and effort in dodging the dangers of life's path, and inendeavouring to keep off the grass, that he makes no solid progress. Onthe other hand, the artistic temperament lives in the world and is notentitled to follow its own laws where those conflict with the interestsof others. The mere possession of this type of temperament involves itsBohemian owner in many difficulties which do not beset the path of thosewho fit into the routine of life as they find it. Certainly it isadvisable for the artist to temper his ways with discretion, for geniusis altogether too apt to make a meteoric blaze and end up in a fizzle. 

The possessor of the artistic temperament is frequently deemedunreliable and capricious, and to a certain extent this is true. It isthe sensitiveness first to one impact and then another, thesusceptibility to the manifold forces that play upon the individual, which turn him now in the one direction and then in the other. He islured and led by this, and then by that. Yet at times he is capable ofthe greatest concentration: immersed in his subject he may even forgetthe outer world and omit to eat his dinner, or perhaps like thephilosopher he may eat it twice. 

It is, however, quite possible to cultivate some of the advantages ofthis temperament and to restrict the disadvantages. It is notnecessary, for example, that anyone should be at the mercy of everytransient impulse: this involves an enormous waste of energy, as wouldthe voyage of a ship which should suffer itself to be blown hither andthither by every passing breeze. We only respond to that to which we arementally attuned, and our minds pick up out of the welter of errantthought only those which correspond to the note we sing. This, then, suggests that by attuning the mind to certain things we automaticallythrow it out of tune with conflicting ideas. The successful artist, as arule, is one who has learnt to render himself oblivious to distractions, and so is enabled to concentrate his attention solely on the work inhand. The artist who will be permanently unsuccessful is the one whoseenthusiasms attract him first to one thing and then another, neverallowing him to remain absorbed by the one thing long enough to bring itto a satisfactory issue. Auto-suggestion applied to this point ofinculcating response to certain things, and immunity from the influenceof others, is an easy and extremely practical help. 

One characteristic of genius is an extreme fertility in making mentalassociations. A central object comes into mind, and immediately the mindof the genius, by contrast, comparison, analogy, inference, andimagination, weaves around it a wealth of possibility: the dull-wittedman sees the same, but his mind travels no farther than the actualvision. The quick mind supplies the apt repartee, while the dullardthinks of the appropriate reply next morning--if at all. Thedisadvantage of the latter mind is that it does not work easily, thedanger of the former is that it may work too easily and get out ofcontrol. Where the central control does not suffice to keep a stronghand upon this easy-running mental machinery, it may quickly merge intoeccentricity and possibly into madness. The insane show this sametendency to rapid, but irrelevant, association which lands them inincoherency: they make, or indulge in, associations which no normalperson would allow. A genius is only a genius while the necessaryselection and control over these associations is retained, when this islost the genius passes into that insanity to which it is so closelyassociated. The same conditions and remarks apply to the artistictemperament, which itself is a mark of possible genius. 

The artistic impulse is essentially creative, and in this itdemonstrates its relationship to the question of sex. It is wellrecognised that many of the inspirations of genius in the various formsof Art have come at a time when the artist was in the throes of thegentle passion. This "love neurosis, " as the cold specialist dubs it, isin essence a condition of exaltation, and therefore of exceptionalsensitiveness. Need we wonder, then, that our artist-friend makesperhaps more frequent excursions than the humdrum individual into therealms of amorous exuberance? By nature he is more susceptible to theinfluence of the finer emotions, and he will find a thousand graces inthe curve of an arm or the turn of an ankle, where, were you to appraisesuch in cold blood, there might be after all little enough to raveabout. 

It seems probable that the inspiration of the opposite sex in theartistic direction lies more in this mood of exaltation than in anyspecific influence. In the exalted condition there is the greatercapacity of response to inspiration from outside ourselves, and alsofrom within. Under all circumstances we are being played upon by thewaves of the sea of thoughts in which we daily live, and thereforeinspiration from this outside source is somewhat of a commonplace. Butunder certain conditions one can undoubtedly be inspired by one's owngreater (subconscious) mind, which contains as treasure all the lore ofits own experience, and probably a good deal more beside. 

However, the artistic temperament, with all that may be said for oragainst it, is a gift of the high gods, and while it does not ofnecessity imply a greater degree of spirituality and spiritual impulsethan the normal, it does at any rate make this possible. The conditionsare provided for finer work than is open to the majority, but so long asman has a measure of free will he is able to turn the use of his giftsupward or down. The freedom of the artist may of course degenerate intolicense, and the spiritual impulse may be turned to perverted ends. There is a distinct difference between the truly spiritual and what maybe termed the psychic: there are hidden powers and latent possibilitieswhich the specially sensitive are beginning to unfold. But the danger isexactly on a par with that which up-to-date chemists and scientistsforesee in the physical world. There are tons of energy, we are told, locked up in the atom of the physical world, and the scientist praysthat mankind may not find the secret of unlocking that power until hismoral sense is developed to such a degree as to prevent his using it fordestructive ends. It is comparatively easy to stimulate the psychic sideof our natures, but unless these powers be tuned by an accompanyingspirituality to a high note, unexpected and even undesirable results mayfollow. The artist has taken a step forward in the exploration of a newrealm, and new discoveries--even though he does not fully comprehendtheir import--are falling to his lot. The safeguard of the pioneer liesin his recognition of the spiritual nature of his quest: if he realisesthat he is making contact with a new realm of thought and idea, then hewill rate his calling high, and not run unnecessary risk by pursuing itin any unworthy or selfish aim. 

CHAPTER XI

"PURE MUSIC"

"We understand but little of music. The greatest masterpiece is buta signpost to that infinite realm of harmony, in which music is forever included, and to the joy which awaits in its eternalunfoldment"

_F. L. Rawson_

The point has been raised in discussion--"Is there such a thing as puremusic?" The question involved is whether music must necessarily conveyany emotional message, or whether it may just be a concourse of sweetsounds signifying nothing. There are those who are prepared to lendsupport to the proposition on either side: but, inasmuch as the wholeobject of these pages has been to emphasise the spiritual message ofmusic, our viewpoint would naturally lead us to take up a position inconflict with that of the "pure music" school. 

The difficulty in all discussion, and particularly in such as this, consists in the fact of our own individual uniqueness. Little as we mayrealise it, our standards of judgment and criticism are purelyindividual and infinitely variable. Two people see a thing: putscientifically, the result of this is that each experiences astimulation of the optic nerve. Apart from any differences arising fromthe varying powers of concentration and observation, the stimulus willbe the same. But the next step in the process of seeing is thetranslation of this nerve-stimulus by the brain into a visual image:this can only be done by the awakening of a brain-picture which isalready there--in short, by recognition. As the pictures alreadyexisting in the mind are compiled by the experience of the individual, and as no two sets of experiences can possibly be identical in allrespects, it follows that the visual image awakened is a purely personaland unique one. The thing seen is variable according to the individual. It is impossible for us to observe alike even when we are concerned withconcrete objects: still more is it impossible when we deal with abstractsubjects such as Art and Beauty. Hence arises the fundamental difficultyof discussion. 

In the world of affairs we have arrived at certain understandings orconventional views which we generally accept, and upon this basis weproceed to argue as if our facts were facts--which which they are not. We agree to regard a certain "colour" as red, although as a matter offact it is neither a colour, nor is it red. Colour is merely thereflection of certain light rays transmitted by ether waves: our redobject reflects the red rays of the spectrum, having absorbed all theothers. But in the absence of light our object is no longer red, andcolour does not exist. Had we generally agreed to call this colour blue, then it would be blue instead of red. The basis of any argument aboutcolour must be some sort of convention of this kind to form a commonmeeting ground. The difficulty in discussion about music is that such aconventional basis of agreement does not exist. 

Music may thus convey a message to one person and not to another: it maybe "pure music" carrying no emotion to this man, and yet it may conveysomething peculiarly definite, to the mind of the other. The message isnot a thing of which we can logically argue "either it is, or it isnot": both statements may be true. Sound exists in the form ofvibration, but if I am deaf I cannot hear it: it has no existence--FORME. The problem thus centres itself largely in the mind of theindividual rather than in the question whether there is or is not amessage and a meaning. Not only music, but the whole world is brimmingover with messages and meanings which our dull senses cannot appreciate. The folk who populate this globe are largely dead. They answer to such alimited range of interests and sensations that they cannot in any realsense be said to be "alive. "

The message of music may be a very gossamer thing, it may be far tootenuous to be expressed in words, though possibly it might be conveyedeloquently enough in some of the sister Arts, in dancing, posture, gesture, or in facial expression. "Pour not out words where there is amusician, " says the writer in Ecclesiasticus. The message may scarcelybe a thought, or emotion, or even an idea: it may simply be a mood. Words so often become our masters instead of our servants, and we areapt to think that if a thing cannot be reduced to a verbal formula it isan airy nothing, a figment of the imagination. So it may be, but it isnone the less real. We have thought of ourselves as material individualsfor so long that it is difficult for us to use other than materialstandards in our estimate of immaterial things: hence our confusion. Wecan feel a thousand things far too delicate to explain or express, joystoo exquisite to voice, doubts too tenuous to utter, and griefs tooheavy to be borne: we could not put them on paper, nor submit to becross-examined as to their reality and substance, but there they are, and not all the argument in the world could impugn their reality to us. What is the most emotional of all the Arts? Music. No art has a deeperpower of penetration, no other can render shades of feeling sodelicate. "[22]

[Note 22: Ribot. "Psychology of the Emotions. "]

Let us take a concrete example: the change from the major to the minormode carries with it a change of sentiment. We feel that, quitenoticeably, the minor mood is one of sadness and resignation as comparedwith the major of brightness and activity. It may be advanced that thisis merely a matter of association in the mind, that we have been longaccustomed to relate grief and melancholy and sadness with minor keys, and that therefore the one idea very naturally brings up the other. Theargument is logical, and cannot be summarily dismissed. But when wereflect that this contrast of activity and resignation, as typified bythe major and minor modes, also corresponds to the fundamental relationof the sexes, the active and the receptive, the "doing" and "being, " wemay question whether association is sufficient as an explanation. Themajor and minor modes may thus be themselves but expressions of somedeeper spiritual relationship embodied in the nature of things. 

Without giving rise to any definite emotion, and in the absence of anyspecific programme, it is thus quite possible for music to suggest amood or to induce an atmosphere. Surely this is, in effect, theconveyance of a message and a meaning, even though both be inarticulate. Such influences may call to like moods or atmospheres within ourselvesand bring them into expression: by being made thus explicit instead ofremaining latent they gain added strength, and are recorded in ourselvesby memory. Thus even the mood suggested by the music of the moment maybe a lasting item in our soul's growth. Art in all its variety of nobleforms is ever beckoning to the best in us, to the sense of the beautifuland to the unformulated ideal: it is the spirit clothed in form callingto the spirit not yet expressed, bidding it build beauty. "This buildingof man's true world--the living world of truth and beauty--is thefunction of Art. Man is true, where he feels his infinity, where he isdivine, and the divine is the creator in him. Therefore with theattainment of his truth he creates. "[23] This call to spirit is the oldallegory of the sleeping beauty waiting to be awakened to her royalrank by the kiss of the seeking prince: it is the same truth asexpressed in the Bible--"We love Him because He first loved us. "

[Note 23: Rabindranath Tagore. "What is Art?"]

It is not music alone that thus seeks to arouse our latent divinity andto stimulate the tenuous virtues which expression alone can make robust. When rhythm without calls to the rhythm within, it answers because itmust. "Dancing is symbolical, it means something, it expresses afeeling, a state of mind. "[24] The grace of the dancer may very wellstir something in mind that ordinarily receives but little awakening. With the changes in the rhythm of the dance, and the gestures that varyin consonance, the echo within sings to a new tune. Perhaps we findourselves tapping the rhythm with our feet or our fingers, or it may bethat we find the very expression on our own face is altering to matchthat upon the countenance of the dancer. The skilful speaker also canarouse almost any emotion he pleases in the minds of his audience. Hemay one moment have them laughing, and then the next, as if by magictouch, he may bring them to sober mood or even to sorrow. Music no lesssurely does the same through the agency of rhythm, melody, and harmonictexture. There may be no words in the music or the dance, but theemotion is nevertheless conveyed. Moreover, each idea in mind has itsown associations, and when once the central idea is implanted itforthwith proceeds to clothe itself in these associations, deckingitself out according to the native colour of the mind. 

[Note 24: Ribot. "Psychology of the Emotions. "]

We find it impossible to conceive that anything which may be termedmusic is devoid of significance, though there are certainly gradationsand degrees of import. It may well be that music, like so many otherthings in nature, has a three-fold aspect corresponding to our ownmake-up as body, soul, and spirit. The outer form, the composition andactual structure, represents the "body" of music: that part which isvisible even to the unobservant eye and audible to the indiscriminatingear. This is a matter of notes and tones quite apart from any realmeaning or value. Such would be an academic exercise, or a technicallycorrect but unconvincing ballad. It might possibly make some appeal tothe intellect by by virtue of the "exhibition of balance and symmetry, the definiteness of plan and design, the vitality and proportion oforganic growth, "[25] but this would not suffice to place it in thecategory of music displaying the "soul" element. 

[Note 25: Hadow. "Studies in Modern Music. "]

This second and higher "soul" significance shows itself in theemotional appeal of the music, in the feelings it provokes and the moodit engenders. Here sound speaks in parables with an outer story and aninner meaning. The non-musical person hears sounds, but the musical mindhears sense. Whether the tidings be of sweetness, affection, or delight, of strength, vigour, or energy, of sorrow or regret, there is all thedifference in the world between the outward comprehension and the innerinterpretation. The formal part of the music is the frame, but theemotion supplies the picture within. 

Yet this is not all. There is still the significance which the pictureis intended to convey, the spirit, the very heart of it. Thisconstitutes the inspiration and "if this inner reality (Spirit) does notexist in a work it ceases to be a work of art at all: it becomes anexample of beautiful handiwork--fine craftsmanship, perhaps--but notart. "[26]

[Note 26: Newlandsmith. "The Temple of Art. "]

It is only in the spirit that the real meaning of true music is to befound, minor and partial revelations may be met and enjoyed at the lowerstages, and at their level these may satisfy the aspirations of thosewho cannot take the higher seats at the musical feast. It is impossiblethat this spiritual message should be comprehended except by those whohave in some measure unfolded their own spiritual perceptions. Spiritualthings must be spiritually discerned. The Bible has its literal andverbal message, appropriate in degree to those whose intellectualaccomplishment rises no further than an ordinary story: but there is aninner meaning which the more advanced can appreciate. There is yet anesoteric meaning, a holy of holies, into which only the initiated andinstructed can penetrate, and this only those whose spiritual vision isunfolded can discern. "Only those in whom the spirit is evolved canunderstand the spiritual meaning. "[27] But each stage has its gospel, though that of the higher stages is incomprehensible to those in thelower. So in all true music there are meanings within meanings, andnothing is meaningless. "Pure" music perhaps conveys the innermostmeaning of all, for "shades of colour, like shades of sound, are of amuch subtler nature, (and) cause much subtler vibrations of the spiritthan can ever be given by words. "[28]

[Note 27: Besant. "Esoteric Christianity. "]

[Note 28: Kandinsky, quoted in "Eurythmics. " (Dalcroze. )]

In this three-fold aspect of music, then, we may perhaps find the key asto whether music must necessarily imply anything or not. There are theouter courts of the Temple of Art, where the meaning and expression isadapted to those who may foregather only there, but there are the innercourts where "more of truth" is to be found by those who have ears tohear. But in the inmost chamber we may discern in the greatestmasterpieces in music that "something beside, some divine element oflife by which they are animated and inspired. "[29] All true music hastrue meaning, but this must correspond at each stage with the power andgrade of discrimination and appraisement possible for the individual. Weare wise in our generation if we refrain from disparaging what we do notunderstand; it is easy to reflect upon ourselves in such disparagement. Conversely, if there be no meaning, surely there is no music, and weneed waste no time in endeavouring to find a message and a meaning inthat composition wherein the composer himself could find none to put. 

[Note 29: Hadow. "Studies in Modern Music. "]

CHAPTER XII

THE PURPOSE OF ART

"But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear: The rest mayreason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know"

_Browning_

There are in essence but two creeds in the world, the one amaterialistic belief, and the other some degree or phase of a spiritualconception. Every degree of density is to be found in the material view, and every grade of refinement exists in the spiritual vision: byimperceptible gradations they may shade from one into the other, but thetwo extremes are material and spiritual. The latter view will tend toresult in unselfishness, in altruism and a keen desire to leave one'sown little corner of the world better for having lived in it. Thematerial idea must almost of necessity lead up to a selfish course ofconduct, where the personal interests are put foremost, and the soleobject is to "get" as much as possible, as opposed to the spiritualphilosophy which would advocate "giving. "

The old wise-heads who carved "MAN--KNOW THYSELF" over the entrance tothe Temple at Delphi knew what they were talking about, for it islargely owing to the fact that man knows so little of himself--andgenerally knows that little wrong--that his philosophy has taken such aperverted turn. The world, and more especially our western world, ishopelessly material in its outlook, and we would suggest that it isbecause the average man thinks of himself as his material body that hisphilosophy follows along the same lines. When a man identifies himselfwith his body, and has only a pious hope of having a spirit which willcome into action when he dies, or perhaps a very long time after he isdead, then naturally his chief concern is with the body of which, at anyrate, he has definite assurance. So he looks after the body, seekscomfort and luxury for it, and strives for the necessary money withwhich to gratify its whims. This means that he must get money the bestway he can, but he must get it: if it has to be at the expense ofothers--well, so much the worse for them. If it has to be fought for, then naturally the stronger wins: the "survival of the fittest" he willsay. Thus, quite logically, from the primary misconception asuperstructure of error is raised. As each body has diverse whims, thepursuit of these must lead to the widest range and conflict of aims, andthus materialism results in disorder, cross-purposes and confusion. Onall sides this diversity of aim, with its corresponding confusion, isvisible both in individuals and in nations to-day. 

But as soon as a man realises that he is primarily a spirit, having abody as an instrument through which to play, his point of view isentirely altered. The pursuit of mere physical enjoyment and luxury isrecognised as having an enervating and blunting effect upon the finerspiritual faculties: it puts the instrument out of tune and spoils itstone. Money is seen as somewhat of a snare and a delusion, when valuedfor its own sake. The object of life is recognised as spiritual growth, and in that growth happiness is found. Quite notoriously it is sought invain in mere selfish pursuits. This spiritual growth can only beattained by the practice of the law of love, manifesting itself inunselfish service in the interests of others. The effect of thisspiritual conception is to eliminate diversity of aim, and to lead backto the simplicity and unity of a single purpose--that of spiritualevolution. 

The body, we know, has come up the long ladder of evolution, and itstill retains in its build many traces of the climb. There are muddypatches in the instincts and passions, and encumbrances and impedimentain both mind and body, as part of our heritage. But spirit has comeDOWN. As Wordsworth expresses it--"trailing clouds of glory do we comefrom God. " All religions claim for us an immortality, and it isdifficult for us to conceive an existence finite at one end and infiniteat the other: so if we are to claim our immortality of spirit we shouldsurely recognise our present spirituality which ensures thatimmortality. However this may be, we may at any rate agree that bodycomes UP and spirit comes DOWN, and they consort here together for a fewdecades: then the body undoubtedly returns as dust to dust, and "thespirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes). But there would be noevolution and no fulfilment of purpose if the spirit were not to returna richer and more developed spirit by reason of its sojourn in theflesh: there would be stagnation, just a simple ineffectual turninground and round, as of a screw that had stripped its thread. 

The battle royal is the fight for mastery as between body and spirit:evolution proceeds apace when spirit takes command and bids the bodyminister to its progress, but evolution halts when the body clogs thespirit. Then Nature, our taskmaster, punishes us, ever choosing that waywhich is entirely appropriate and induced by the fault itself: this isthe purpose and the cause of our pecks of trouble. The battle has to befought--and won--by each of us: the only effect of temporary surrenderis indefinite delay. The battle has still to be fought again with addeddifficulties later on. "The popular-class composer nowadays is notinfrequently a thoroughly competent and well-read musician who, _if hechose_, could write really solid and substantial music. "[30] So thefrankly commercial musician who writes for the market has surrendered inone skirmish of spirit. Very possibly he gains the desired pieces ofsilver, but they are dearly paid for at the expense of his own artisticsoul. Also in the long run the surrender is futile, for he MUST evolve:and if he has slipped down, then so much further has he again to climb. 

[Note 30: Article in "John o' London's Weekly. "]

The antagonist of Materialism in the world-contest is Spirit, and theorganising and marshalling of the spiritual forces has been the provinceof religion in general. But religion has itself been too much apart fromthe things of everyday, it has lived in a compartment of its own, labelled "Sundays only. " As a consequence its influence has failed topermeate the world of affairs, and both religion and the world havesuffered direly as a result. When religion ceases to carry any weightwith the individual, his balance necessarily sways toward the material:and when religious teaching practically ceases to have any vitality inthe education of the nation, it follows that the outlook must turn moreand more in the direction of selfishness, force, and mere worldlyaffluence. This may be a tolerably comfortable method of extinction, butit is no way of progressive life. Music allies itself with the forces atwork on the spiritual side, and thus comes to the battle in support ofreligion. 

Music exists as a permanent witness to the reality of the intangible, and to the power and pre-eminence of qualities which no money canpurchase and which Time is powerless to destroy. The so-called solidthings disintegrate, the vogue of one year spells oblivion in the next, but the power of music to stir the pulse, to awaken the emotions and touplift the spirit, has remained through all the yesterdays, and will doso--we may anticipate--through all the to-morrows. It is an ally andco-witness with religion for immaterial and spiritual ends. Anotherally, in the guise of science, is also coming fast in support. Sciencehas already overstepped the bounds of the material in many quarters:its trend is ever in the direction of the invisible, where there isanother range of values and qualities, and where no scales weigh and nofootrules measure. It is now engaged in discovering the unseen causeswhich underlie the objective effects we notice in the physical world. Presently, there can be but little doubt, we shall find the three, Religion, Science, and Music (or rather, Art in general) ranged side byside for the ultimate destruction of the purely material and mechanistictheories of life: and when these are finally overthrown, with them willalso topple the doctrines, founded thereon, of self-seeking and strife. 

Our own spirit-nature is our truest guide to the discernment of thespirit universal. There is but one life and one spirit, though thedegrees of its manifestation are wide as the poles asunder: just as inour own body there are specialised cells for high tasks and for lowly, yet the same life pervades them all. There is a wild robin redbreast whoalways comes when I dig my garden, to eat the grubs that the spade turnsup. He is not in the least afraid, and he often answers when I whistleto him: he is a little cousin of mine. His life is in no essentialsdifferent to my own life, except that I have the advantage of him inbeing able to express so much more of the same spirit. Divinity andspirit (are not the terms synonymous?) are in all, behind all, and inever-increasing degree before all. Our own answering to love and theappeal of beauty is simply the echo of like to like; the spirit withinreplies to the call of spirit without. For this reason Music is auniversal language, and Art can know no boundaries. 

To explore the beauties of Art and Music is to add those beauties, byexpression and the power of memory, to the self. Thus we may grow morebeautiful, just as surely as by thinking ever in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, we grow more sordid and mercenary. It is aperfectly commonsense process. Furthermore, the appreciation of beautyand of artistic expression develops our power of keener appreciation. Evolution in music cannot stop, for spirit is behind it: and the spiritwithin must eventually find its way back to the universal source fromwhich it came, just as water must find its own level. The present statusof everything that we observe to-day is purely temporary: we are lookingat one picture of a cosmic cinema film that stretches on to infinity. Just because we see only one static picture of a process which trulynever stops moving, so we get a view of life that contains much ofdelusion. We have heard a Doctor of Music state in public his opinionthat the age of the composition of musical masterpieces was for everpassed: so will others say that the age of inspiration and prophecy hasalso departed. These good people are mistaking the outer form which istransient, for the inner principle which is spirit and eternal. Theyhave lost their bearings. Music must go on from development todevelopment, and just as soon as it proves itself incapable of furtherdevelopment and expression along certain lines, the spirit within willrend the husk that can no longer contain it and will blossom forth insome new and more expansive guise. As with our own bodies, the outworngarb will be laid aside, and the spirit will find a finer form. 

"Like Scriabin, Scott looks to Music as a means to carry further thespiritual evolution of the race, and believes that it has occultproperties of which only a few enlightened people are aware. "[31] Therecan be no doubt that this survival-value of Music lies in its power toassist spiritual unfoldment and progress, and if the serious practice ofmusic involves a certain discipline of plain living and high thinking, are not these themselves adjuncts to a progressive evolution? Where theadequate interpretation of music involves a certain abnegation andunselfishness in the case of a soloist, and a large measure of team-playand co-operation in the case of concerted work, are not these againelements in inculcating an attitude that transcends self? Does not thesimple appreciation of music tend to unlock the doors of imagination andset it free in regions far removed from the gross? And are not all theseso many aids to higher ends?

[Note 31: Eaglefield Hull. "Cyril Scott. "]

If the inspiration that is in music and works through it serves toawaken us to the fact that the world of spirit is very close at alltimes, and that our knowledge of it and our communion therewith issolely limited by our capacity of fine response, it will have donesomething of incalculable value. If it arouses in us the desire to fitourselves by aspiration and a high resolve to achieve that delicacy ofsensitiveness whereby we ourselves may catch some of the spirit'stenuous message, it will have served to put us in touch with eternalinfluences. It should certainly assist in breaking down any leaningstowards a gospel of materialism with all its naked selfishness, and inso doing "Art is calling us the 'children of the immortal, ' andproclaiming our right to dwell in the heavenly worlds. "[32]

[Note 32: Rabindranath Tagore. "Personality. "]