ludes time and
emphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that
produces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. This may be
called the music of the head,--the music of the brain.

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language. It was below and
before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Beneath the
waves is the sea--above the clouds is the sky.

_ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL Photogravure after a photograph from life_

[Illustration]

Before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and
fears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones.

Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that Music was born of
love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have
been uttered a strain of music. Possibly some mother, looking in the
eyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air.

Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we
feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are
translated into music. Music is the sunshine--the climate--of the soul,
and it floods the heart with a perfect June.

I am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvellous
mingling of Love and Death. Love is the greatest of all passions, and
Death is its shadow. Death gets all its terror from Love, and Love gets
its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture from the darkness
of Death. Love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave.

The old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling, through
time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. Most of the old operas
consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative. There
should be no unmeaning music. It is as though a writer should suddenly
leave his subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing but a
repetition of one word like "the," "the," "the," or "if," "if," "if,"
varying the repetition of these words, but without meaning,--and then
resume the subject of his article.

I am not saying that great music was not produced before Wagner but I am
simply endeavoring to show the steps that have been taken. It was
necessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the
greatest might be produced. The same is true of the drama. Thousands and
thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions
prepared the way for the supreme composer.

When I read Shakespeare, I am astonish