But the
pedants are not harmful, because they are not interesting; strictly
speaking, they do not write for the public at all, but only for their
professional colleagues. The harmful men are the foolish rhapsodists
who take advantage of the fact that the language of music is
indeterminate and evanescent to talk about the art in such a way as to
present themselves as persons of exquisite sensibilities rather than
to direct attention to the real nature and beauty of music itself. To
them I shall recur in a later chapter devoted to musical criticism,
and haply point out the difference between good and bad critics and
commentators from the view-point of popular need and popular
opportunity.

II

_Recognition of Musical Elements_

[Sidenote: _The nature of music._]

Music is dual in its nature; it is material as well as spiritual. Its
material side we apprehend through the sense of hearing, and
comprehend through the intellect; its spiritual side reaches us
through the fancy (or imagination, so it be music of the highest
class), and the emotional part of us. If the scope and capacity of the
art, and the evolutionary processes which its history discloses (a
record of which is preserved in its nomenclature), are to be
understood, it is essential that this duality be kept in view. There
is something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes
that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing
or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis; but real
appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the qualities
which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent
hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the
enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as
the material.

[Sidenote: _Necessity of intelligent hearing._]

So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be
reduced to mathematics and its practice to handicraft. But recognition
of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or
the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be
intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this
study, design may be held to be Form in its primary stages, the
recognition of which is possible to every listener who is fond of
music; it is not necessary that he be learned in the science. He need
only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its
own reward