MUSIC.—The savage enjoys noises—explosion—the imitation of thunder. This noise expresses his feeling. He enjoys concussion. His ear and brain are in harmony. So, he takes cognizance of but few colors. The neutral tints make no impression on his eyes. He appreciates the flames of red and yellow. That is to say, there is a harmony between his brain and eye. As he advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other sounds, his eye other colors. He becomes a complex being, and there has entered into his mind the idea of proportion. The music of the drum no longer satisfies him. He sees that there is as much difference between noises and melodies as between stones and statues. The strings in Corti's Harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are developed.
The eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and sight increase from age to age.
The first idea of music is the keeping of time—a recurring emphasis at intervals of equal length or duration. This is afterward modified—the music of joy being fast, the emphasis at short intervals, and that of sorrow slow.
After all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the blood and muscles. There is a rise and fall under excitement of both. In joy the heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to such emotion is quick. In grief—in sadness, the blood is delayed. In music the broad division is one of time. In language, words of joy are born of light—that which shines—words of grief of darkness and gloom. There is still another division: The language of happiness comes also from heat, and that of sadness from cold.
These ideas or divisions are universal. In all art are the light and shadow—the heat and cold.
OF COURSE ENGLAND has no love for America. By England I mean the governing class. Why should monarchy be in love with republicanism, with democracy? The monarch insists that he gets his right to rule from what he is pleased to call the will of God, whereas in a republic the sovereign authority is the will of the people. It is impossible that there should be any real friendship between the two forms of government.
We must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there is an England within England—an England that does not belong to the titled classes—an England that has not been bribed or demoralized by those in authority; and that England has always been our friend, because that England is the friend of liberty and of progress everywhere. But the lackeys, the snobs, the flatterers of the titled, those who are willing to crawl that they may rise, are now and always have been the enemies of the great Republic.
It is a curious fact that in monarchical governments the highest and lowest are generally friends. There may be a foundation for this friendship in the fact that both are parasites—both live on the labor of honest men. After all, there is a kinship between the prince and the pauper. Both extend the hand for alms, and the fact that one is jeweled and the other extremely dirty makes no difference in principle—and the owners of these hands have always been fast friends, and, in accordance with the great law of ingratitude, both have held in contempt the people who supported them.
One thing we must not forget, and that is that the best people of England are our friends. The best writers, the best thinkers are on our side. It is only natural that all who visit America should find some fault. We find fault ourselves, and to be thin-skinned is almost a plea of guilty. For my part, I have no doubt about the future of America. It not only is, but is to be for many, many generations, the greatest nation of the world.