ed in giving
habits of gentleness and justice; "gentleness" (as I will show you
presently) being the best single word I could have used to express the
capacity for giving and receiving true pleasure; and "justice" being
similarly the most comprehensive word for all kind of honest dealing.

61. Now, I began these letters with the purpose of explaining the
nature of the requirements of justice first, and then those of
gentleness, but I allowed myself to be led into that talk about the
theaters, not only because the thoughts could be more easily written
as they came, but also because I was able thus to illustrate for you
more directly the nature of the enemy we have to deal with. You do not
perhaps know, though I say this diffidently (for I often find working
men know many things which one would have thought were out of their
way), that music was, among the Greeks, quite the first means of
education; and that it was so connected with their system of ethics
and of intellectual training, that the God of Music is with them also
the God of Righteousness;--the God who purges and avenges iniquity,
and contends with their Satan as represented under the form of Python,
"the corrupter." And the Greeks were incontrovertibly right in this.
Music is the nearest at hand, the most orderly, the most delicate, and
the most perfect, of all bodily pleasures; it is also the only one
which is equally helpful to all the ages of man,--helpful from the
nurse's song to her infant, to the music, unheard of others, which so
often haunts the deathbed of pure and innocent spirits. And the action
of the deceiving or devilish power is in _nothing_ shown quite so
distinctly among us at this day,--not even in our commercial
dishonesties, nor in our social cruelties,--as in its having been able
to take away music, as an instrument of education, altogether; and to
enlist it almost wholly in the service of superstition on the one
hand, and of sensuality on the other.

62. This power of the Muses, then, and its proper influence over you
workmen, I shall eventually have much to insist upon with you; and in
doing so I shall take that beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son
(which I have already referred to), and explain, as far as I know, the
significance of it, and then I will take the three means of festivity,
or wholesome human joy, therein stated,--fine dress, rich food, and
music;--("bring forth the fairest robe for him,"--"bring forth the
fatted calf, an