the sweet, elusive mystery surrounding the art. Through the myths
and legends based on their speculations runs a suggestion of divine
origin.

The Egyptians of old saw in their sublime god, Osiris, and his ideal
spouse, Isis, the authors of music. Among the Hindus it was regarded as
a priceless gift from the great god Brahma, who was its creator and
whose peerless consort, Sarasvati, was its guardian. Poetic fancies in
these lines permeate the early literature of diverse peoples.

This is not surprising. Abundant testimony proves that the existence of
music is coeval with that of mankind; that it is based on the
modulations of the human voice and the agitations of the human muscles
and nerves caused by the infinite variations of the spiritual and
emotional sensations, needs and aspirations of humanity; that it has
grown with man's growth, developed with man's development, and that
its origin is as divine as that of man.

[Illustration: MOZART]

The inevitable dualism which Emerson found bisecting all nature appears
also in music, which is both spiritual and material. The spiritual part
of music appeals to the spiritual part of man, addressing each heart
according to the cravings and capacities of each. The material part of
music may be compared to the body in which man's spirit is housed. It is
the vehicle which conveys the message of music from soul to soul through
the medium of the human ear with its matchless harp of nerve-fibres and
its splendid sounding-board, the eardrum.

Music is the mirror which most perfectly reflects man's inner being and
the essence of all things. Ruskin saw clearly that he alone can love art
well who loves better what art mirrors. This may especially be applied
to music, which offers, as a Beethoven has said, a more lofty revelation
than all wisdom and philosophy.

Having no model in nature, being neither an imitation of any actual
object, nor a repetition of anything experienced, music stands alone
among the arts. It represents the real thing, as Schopenhauer has it,
the thing itself, not the mere semblance. Were we able to give a
thoroughly satisfactory explanation of music, he declares, we should
have the true philosophy of the universe.

"Music is a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to
the edge of the Infinite, and impels us for a moment to gaze into it,"
exclaimed Carlyle. Wagner found in music the conscious language of
feeling, that which ennobles the s