to be recognized, of course, that melody is emotional and dynamic
not imitative, that its power lies in suggestion rather than in direct
representation, and that its language is general; with all this I have
nothing to do. Meunier has done much with his chisel to interpret the
spirit of constructive labor and to develop its higher significance. His
art is indeed concrete and static, and sculpture and music are not to be
compared; yet it raises the question whether there may be other bold
extensions of art.

The primitive industries must have been mostly silent, when there were
no iron tools, when fire felled the forest tree and hollowed the canoe,
when the parts in construction were secured by thongs, and when the game
was caught in silent traps or by the swift noiseless arrow and spear.
Even at the Stone Age the rude implements and the materials must have
been mostly devoid of resonance. But now industry has become universal
and complex, and it has also become noisy,--so noisy that we organize to
protect ourselves from becoming distraught.

And yet a workshop, particularly if it works in metal, is replete with
tones that are essentially musical. Workmen respond readily to unison.
There are melodies that arise from certain kinds of labor. Much of our
labor is rhythmic. In any factory driven by power, there is a
fundamental rhythm and motion, tying all things together. I have often
thought, standing at the threshold of a mill, that it might be possible
somewhere by careful forethought to eliminate the clatter and so to
organize the work as to develop a better expression in labor. Very much
do we need to make industry vocal.

It is worth considering, also, whether it is possible to take over into
music any of these sounds of industry in a new way, that they may be
given meanings they do not now possess.

At all events, the poetic element in industry is capable of great
development and of progressive interpretation; and poetry is scarcely to
be dissociated from sound. All good work well done is essentially poetic
to the sensitive mind; and when the work is the rhythm of many men
acting in unison, the poetry has voice.

The striking of the rivet
The purr of a drill
The crash of a steam-shovel
The plunge of a dredge
The buzz of a saw
The roll of belts and chains
The whirl of spindles
The hiss of steam
The tip-tap of valves
The underton