That this particular series of
sounds called a strain of music, an invisible and fairy troop
which never brushed the dew from any mead, can be wafted down
through the centuries from Homer to me, and he have been
conversant with that same aerial and mysterious charm which now
so tingles my ears? What a fine communication from age to age,
of the fairest and noblest thoughts, the aspirations of ancient
men, even such as were never communicated by speech, is music!
It is the flower of language, thought colored and curved, fluent
and flexible, its crystal fountain tinged with the sun's rays,
and its purling ripples reflecting the grass and the clouds. A
strain of music reminds me of a passage of the Vedas, and I
associate with it the idea of infinite remoteness, as well as of
beauty and serenity, for to the senses that is farthest from us
which addresses the greatest depth within us. It teaches us
again and again to trust the remotest and finest as the divinest
instinct, and makes a dream our only real experience. We feel a
sad cheer when we hear it, perchance because we that hear are not
one with that which is heard.
Therefore a torrent of sadness deep,
Through the strains of thy triumph is heard to sweep.
The sadness is ours. The Indian poet Calidas says in the
Sacontala: "Perhaps the sadness of men on seeing beautiful forms
and hearing sweet music arises from some faint remembrance of
past joys, and the traces of connections in a former state of
existence." As polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain
in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The
hero is the sole patron of music. That harmony which exists
naturally between the hero's moods and the universe the soldier
would fain imitate with drum and trumpet. When we are in health
all sounds fife and drum for us; we hear the notes of music in
the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the
dawn. Marching is when the pulse of the hero beats in unison
with the pulse of Nature, and he steps to the measure of the
universe; then there is true courage and invincible strength.
Plutarch says that "Plato thinks the gods never gave men music,
the science of melody and harmony, for mere delectation or to
tickle the ear; but that the discordant parts of the circulations
and beauteous fabric of the soul, and that of it that roves about
the body, and many times, for want of tune and air, breaks forth
into many extravagances and excesses, might be sweetly recalled
and artfully wound up to their former consent and agreement."
Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. It is the
only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far surpass
any man's faith in the loftiness of his destiny. Things are to
be learned which it will be worth the while to learn.
