flute but
because he did not have to go to Boston to hear "the Symphony." The
rhythm of his prose, were there nothing else, would determine his value
as a composer. He was divinely conscious of the enthusiasm of Nature,
the emotion of her rhythms and the harmony of her solitude. In this
consciousness he sang of the submission to Nature, the religion of
contemplation, and the freedom of simplicity--a philosophy
distinguishing between the complexity of Nature which teaches freedom,
and the complexity of materialism which teaches slavery. In music, in
poetry, in all art, the truth as one sees it must be given in terms
which bear some proportion to the inspiration. In their greatest
moments the inspiration of both Beethoven and Thoreau express profound
truths and deep sentiment, but the intimate passion of it, the storm
and stress of it, affected Beethoven in such a way that he could not
but be ever showing it and Thoreau that he could not easily expose it.
They were equally imbued with it, but with different results. A
difference in temperament had something to do with this, together with
a difference in the quality of expression between the two arts. "Who
that has heard a strain of music feared lest he would speak
extravagantly forever," says Thoreau. Perhaps music is the art of
speaking extravagantly. Herbert Spencer says that some men, as for
instance Mozart, are so peculiarly sensitive to emotion ... that music is
to them but a continuation not only of the expression but of the actual
emotion, though the theory of some more modern thinkers in the
philosophy of art doesn't always bear this out. However, there is no
doubt that in its nature music is predominantly subjective and tends to
subjective expression, and poetry more objective tending to objective
expression. Hence the poet when his muse calls for a deeper feeling
must invert this order, and he may be reluctant to do so as these
depths often call for an intimate expression which the physical looks
of the words may repel. They tend to reveal the nakedness of his soul
rather than its warmth. It is not a matter of the relative value of the
aspiration, or a difference between subconsciousness and consciousness
but a difference in the arts themselves; for example, a composer may
not shrink from having the public hear his "love letter in tones,"
while a poet may feel sensitive about having everyone read his "letter
in words." When the object of the love is mankind the