er sky, pausing to feed or
crouching to listen to the voices of the night....

"By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs,
like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach....

"In some still valley in the South, in midsummer. The
slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson
and takes wing; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the
singing of the grasshopper--"

[Sidenote: _Mischievous writing._]

[Sidenote: _Musical sensibility and sanity._]

Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go
on for quantity. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole,
but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis
does not hear Ernst's violin under any such improbable conditions; if
he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither
does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the
instrument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did
intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his
soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the
injudicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation,
unless they, too, can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic
dreams when music is sounding. When such writing is popular it is
difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as
susceptible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the
sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of
taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover,
when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin
more, he speaks most undeserved dispraise of one of the best violin
players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady
Halle--she that was Madame Norman-Neruda.

[Sidenote: _A place for rhapsody._]

[Sidenote: _Intelligent rhapsody._]

Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism?
Yes, decidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the
truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a composition
were he to confine himself to a technical description of it--the
number of its measures, its intervals, modulations, speed, and rhythm.
Such a description would only be comprehensible to the trained
musician, and to him would picture the body merely, not the soul. One
might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a sta