ng to music, he listens
around it. And from this subconscious viewpoint, he inclines perhaps
more to the thinking about than thinking in music. If he could go into
some other line of business for a year or so perhaps his perspective
would be more naturally normal. The unity of a sonata movement has long
been associated with its form, and to a greater extent than is
necessary. A first theme, a development, a second in a related key and
its development, the free fantasia, the recapitulation, and so on, and
over again. Mr. Richter or Mr. Parker may tell us that all this is
natural, for it is based on the classic-song form, but in spite of your
teachers a vague feeling sometimes creeps over you that the form-nature
of the song has been stretched out into deformity. Some claim for
Tchaikowsky that his clarity and coherence of design is unparalleled
(or some such word) in works for the orchestra. That depends, it seems
to us, on how far repetition is an essential part of clarity and
coherence. We know that butter comes from cream--but how long must we
watch the "churning arm!" If nature is not enthusiastic about
explanation, why should Tschaikowsky be? Beethoven had to churn, to
some extent, to make his message carry. He had to pull the ear, hard
and in the same place and several times, for the 1790 ear was tougher
than the 1890 one. But the "great Russian weeper" might have spared us.
To Emerson, "unity and the over-soul, or the common-heart, are
synonymous." Unity is at least nearer to these than to solid geometry,
though geometry may be all unity.

But to whatever unpleasantness the holding to this theory of duality
brings us, we feel that there is a natural law underneath it all, and
like all laws of nature, a liberal interpretation is the one nearest
the truth. What part of these supplements are opposites? What part of
substance is manner? What part of this duality is polarity? These
questions though not immaterial may be disregarded, if there be a
sincere appreciation (intuition is always sincere) of the "divine"
spirit of the thing. Enthusiasm for, and recognition of these higher
over these lower values will transform a destructive iconoclasm into
creation, and a mere devotion into consecration--a consecration which,
like Amphion's music, will raise the Walls of Thebes.

9

Assuming, and then granting, that art-activity can be transformed or
led towards an eventual consecration, by recognizing and using in their