t was the
religion which was as high above doctrine and creed and theology as the
stars were above the clouds. The high and holy spirit inhabiting
eternity seemed to emerge from the metaphysic, the science of religion,
from argument and strife and dogma, as the moon wades, clear and cold,
out of the rack of dusky vapours. Such a voice, as that gentle,
tender, melancholy, and still joyful voice, that speaks in the 119th
Psalm, telling of misunderstanding and persecution, and yet dwelling in
a further region of peace, came speeding into the very labyrinth of
Hugh's troubled heart. "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost;
O seek thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments." It was not
inspiration, not a high-hearted energy, that music brought with it; it
was rather a reconciliation of all that hurt or jarred the soul, an
earnest of intended peace.

But, after all, this was not music pure and simple; it was music set in
a rich frame of both sensuous and spiritual emotions. Hugh realised
that music had never played a large part in his life, but had been one
of many artistic emotions that had spoken to him in divers manners.
There was one fact about music which lessened its effect upon Hugh, and
that was the fact that it seemed to depend more than other arts upon
what one brought to it. In certain moods, particularly melancholy
moods, when the spirit was fevered by dissatisfaction or sorrow, its
appeal was irresistible; it came flying out of the silence, like an
angel bearing a vial of fragrant blessings. It came flooding in, like
the cool brine over scorched sands, smoothing, refreshing, purifying.
There seemed something direct, authentic, and divine about the message
of music in such moods; there seemed no interfusion of human
personality to distract, because the medium was more pure.

Sometimes, for weeks together at Cambridge, Hugh would go without
hearing any music at all, until an almost physical thirst would fall
upon him. In such an arid mood, he would find himself tyrannously
affected by any chance fragment of music wafted past him; he would go
to some cheerful party, where, after the meal was over, a piano would
be opened, and a simple song sung or a short piece played. This would
come like a draught of water to a weary traveller, bearing Hugh away
out of his surroundings, away from gossip and lively talk, into a
remote and sheltered place; it was like opening a casement from a
familiar and li