he pearly gates swing
wide to let us in, when we pace the burnished vistas towards the
Presence, when the measureless music of the Most High God fills our
hearts--_yap-yap-yap!_

Music, I said! I think I stand towards music as I stand towards sea
and sky. Oh, I could squirm when I think of the bickerings I have
had with music-lovers. And yet with you, my friend, prince of
music-lovers, I have had no quarrel. Because, I think, you let me
alone. When you feel in the mood, when the moon is on the river, and
the warm breeze gently sways the curtains by the open window, you will
sit down and improvise, and I will lie in my deep chair, and smoke and
dream. You cease, and say "Do you like it?" and I am silent.

Then you laugh and go on again. You understand. But what maniacal
frenzy is this which demands a vociferous "passionate love of music"
from everyone? Watch the current dish-water fiction. Every character,
male and female, is "passionately fond of music." Which means? That
the readers of this stuff consider a passionate love of music to be
fashionable. It is so easy, you see, to possess it. There is no need
to study either musical theory, practice, history, or biography. An
inane expression of vacuous content when music is being rendered, a
quantity of rhapsodical rubbish about Chopin and Beethoven without any
knowledge of either, and behold! a lover of music. _Yap-yap-yap!_

With all this, I know, you agree, but you ask yourself, as you read,
what has this to do with a marine engineer's working day? It has
everything to do with it. It has everything to do with the working day
of every man. For this indiscriminate belauding of the love of music
leads to an almost unimaginable hypocrisy among those who do not
think. Certainly, Music is the highest of the Arts, and the oldest,
just (I presume) as Astronomy is the highest and most ancient
science. One is pure form, the other pure mathematics. And so, I may
conclude, the "Music of the Spheres" comprises all that is highest
and purest and truest within our comprehension. But this fashionable,
open-mouthed delirium is no more a worship of music than star-gazing
is serious astronomy. These hypocrites are sailing under false
colours. I noticed, when I once suggested at a dinner-table the
cultivation of the tin whistle, amusement among the men, and titters
among the women. When I asked why old Pan's instrument should be so
bespattered with ridicule, they were instantly serious