It
bids us "Rest in the Lord," or else it tells us that "He was despised
and rejected of men"; but, again, what matter the words? They are almost
a hinderance, beautiful though they be.
The hardened soul melts at the tones of the singer, at the unspeakable
pathos of the sounds that cannot lie; one almost believes--one believes
at least in the belief of others. At last one understands, and is purged
of intolerance and cynical contempt, and would kneel with the rest, in
sheer human sympathy!
Oh, wretched outsider that one is (if it all be true)--one whose
heart, so hopelessly impervious to the written word, so helplessly
callous to the spoken message, can be reached only by the organized
vibrations of a trained larynx, a metal pipe, a reed, a
fiddle-string--by invisible, impalpable, incomprehensible little
air-waves in mathematical combination, that beat against a tiny drum at
the back of one's ear. And these mathematical combinations and the laws
that govern them have existed forever, before Moses, before Pan, long
before either a larynx or a tympanum had been evolved. They
are absolute!
Oh, mystery of mysteries!
Euterpe, Muse of Muses, what a personage hast thou become since first
thou sattest for thy likeness (with that ridiculous lyre in thy untaught
hands) to some Greek who could carve so much better than thou
couldst play!
Four strings; but not the fingerable strings of Stradivarius.
Pages:
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159