effects. But the
situation of Romeo is an intensely pathetic one, and it is probable
that the singer's voice may have possessed some strange power over the
nerves, something of the purely sensuous pathos of an accordion or a
zither, especially in the long, gradually diminished notes, "fine by
degrees and beautifully less," which move like an AEolian harp. But, if
the pathetic effect of "Ombra adorata" could not be ascribed to the
composition neither could it be ascribed to the interpretation. For
this sensuous pathos, though enhanced by the singer's intellectual
qualities, in no way depends upon them; the intellect can make him
graduate and improve the form of a piece, all that which is perceived by
the mind, but it has no influence on the nerves; Crescentini's musical
intelligence may have enabled him to make "Ombra adorata" a beautiful
song, but only his physical powers of voice could have enabled him to
make it a pathetic one.

As these physical elements are the material out of which artistic forms
are moulded by the musician, he necessarily deals with and disposes of
those powers over the nerves which are inherent in them. When he creates
a musical form out of minor intervals, he necessarily gives that form
something of the melancholy effect of such intervals; when he composes
a piece with the peculiar rhythm of a march, he necessarily gives his
piece some of the inspiriting power of that rhythm; when he employs
a hautboy or a trumpet, he necessarily lends his work some of the
depressing quality of the hautboy or some of the cheering quality of
the trumpet. Thus the intellectually conceived and perceived forms are
invested with the power over the nerves peculiar to certain of the
physical elements of music; but it is in those component physical
elements, and not in the forms into which they are disposed, that lies
the emotional force of the art. Nor is this all: the physical elements,
inasmuch as they are subdued and regulated and neutralized by one
another in the intellectual form, are inevitably deprived of the full
vigour of their emotional power; the artistic form has tamed and curbed
them, has forbidden their freely influencing the nerves, while at the
same time it--the form--has exerted its full sway over the mind. The
mountains have been hewn into terraces, the forests have been clipped
into gardens, the waves have been constrained into fountains, the
thunder has been tuned down into musical notes; nature ha