even if the connection costs a guinea, is
not enough to secure the real _hearing_ of music; or, if this formula
appear too vulgar, asking them to repeat to themselves those lines of
Keats. I feel sure that so doing would save much of that dreadful
bitterness and dryness of soul, a state of conscious non-receptivity
corresponding in musical experience with what ascetic writers call
"spiritual aridity"--which must occasionally depress even the most
fortunate of listeners. For, look in thy conscience, O friendly
fellow-concert-goer, and say truly, hast thou not, many times and oft,
sat to no purpose upon narrow seats, blinded by gas, with no outlook
save alien backs and bonnets, while divinest music flowed all around,
yet somehow wetted not thy thirsty and irritated soul?

The recognition of this fact would not only diminish such painful
moments (or rather, alas! _hours_), but would teach us to endure them
cheerfully as the preparation for future enjoyment, the garnering for
private and silent enjoyment. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those
unheard," etc., would act like Joseph's interpretation of the fat and
lean kine of Pharaoh; we should consider concerts and musical festivals
as fatiguing, even exhausting, employments, the strain of which was
rendered pleasant by the anticipation of much ease and delight to come.

Connected with this question is that of amateur performance. The amateur
seems nowadays to waste infinite time in vying with the professional
person instead of becoming acquainted, so to speak, with the composer.
It is astonishing how very little music the best amateurs are acquainted
with, because they must needs perform everything they know. This, in
most cases, is sheer waste, for, in the way of performers, the present
needs of mankind (as Auguste Comte remarked about philosophers) can be
amply met by twenty thousand professionals. And many families would,
from a spirit of moderation, forego the possession of an unpaid
professional in the shape of a daughter or an aunt. One of the chief
uses, indeed, of the professional performers should be to suppress
amateurs by furnishing a standard of performance which lovers of music
would silently apply to the music which formed the daily delight of
their inner ear.

For, if we care veraciously for music, we think of it, _or think it_, as
it ought to be performed, not as we should ourselves perform it. Nay,
more, I feel convinced that truly musical persons, such as