Whether the tidings be of sweetness, affection, or delight,
of strength, vigour, or energy, of sorrow or regret, there is all the
difference in the world between the outward comprehension and the inner
interpretation. The formal part of the music is the frame, but the
emotion supplies the picture within.

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

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

It is only in the spirit that the real meaning of true music is to be
found, minor and partial revelations may be met and enjoyed at the lower
stages, and at their level these may satisfy the aspirations of those
who cannot take the higher seats at the musical feast. It is impossible
that this spiritual message should be comprehended except by those who
have in some measure unfolded their own spiritual perceptions. Spiritual
things must be spiritually discerned. The Bible has its literal and
verbal message, appropriate in degree to those whose intellectual
accomplishment rises no further than an ordinary story: but there is an
inner meaning which the more advanced can appreciate. There is yet an
esoteric meaning, a holy of holies, into which only the initiated and
instructed can penetrate, and this only those whose spiritual vision is
unfolded can discern. "Only those in whom the spirit is evolved can
understand the spiritual meaning."[27] But each stage has its gospel,
though that of the higher stages is incomprehensible to those in the
lower. So in all true music there are meanings within meanings, and
nothing is meaningless. "Pure" music perhaps conveys the innermost
meaning of all, for "shades of colour, like shades of sound, are of a
much subtler nature, (and) cause much subtler vibrations of the spirit
than 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 as
to whether music must necessarily imply anything or not. There are the
outer courts of the Temple of Art, where the meaning and expression is
adapted to those who may foregather only there, but there are