All of the great sonatas and symphonies are of this wonderfully varied form of writing. How full it can be of expressiveness you know from the Songs without Words by Mendelssohn, and the Nocturnes of Chopin; how full of flickering humor you hear in the Scherzo of a Beethoven symphony; how full of deep solemnity and grief one feels in the funeral marches.[50]
This school of composition has been followed by both the greater and the lesser masters. Every part is made to say something as naturally and interestingly as possible, being neither too restricted nor too free. Then, in playing, both hands must be equally intelligent, for each has an important part assigned to it.
The great good of study in harmony and counterpoint is that it increases one's appreciation. As soon as we begin to understand the spirit of good writing we begin to play better, because we see more. We begin, perhaps in a small way, to become real music-thinkers. By all these means we learn to understand better and better what the meaning of true writing is. It will be clear to us that a composer is one who thinks pure thoughts in tone, and not one who is a weaver of deceits.
CHAPTER XV.
MUSIC AND READING.
"Truly it has been said, a loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge."—Thomas Carlyle.
A beautiful thing in life is the friendship for books. Every one who loves books pays some day a tribute to them, expressing thankfulness for the joy and comfort they have given. There are in them, for everybody who will seek, wise words, good counsel, companies of great people, fairies, friends for every day, besides wonders we never see nor dream of in daily life.
Some of the great men have told us about their love for books; how they have saved penny by penny slowly to buy one, or how after the day's labor a good book and the firelight were prized above anything else. All tell us how much they owe to books and what a blessing books are. Imagine the number of heart-thoughts there must be in a shelf full of good books! Thoughts in tones or thoughts in words may be of the heart or not. But it is only when they are of the heart that they are worthy of our time.
You will not only love books, but gain from them something of the thoughts they contain. We might, had we time, talk of classic books, but as we have already talked of classic music we know what the principal thing is. It is that good thought, out of the heart, be expressed in a scholarly way—"Great thought needs great expression."[51] This teaches us the necessity for choosing good books for our instruction and for our entertainment. They present beautiful pictures to us truthfully, or they present truth to us beautifully. And these are the first test of a written thought—its truth and its beauty.
If you read good books you will have in every volume you get something well worth owning. You should bestow upon it as much care as you would want any other good friend to receive. And if it has contributed help or pleasure to you it is surely worth an abiding place. A fine pleasure will come from a good book even after we are quite done with it. As we see it in years after it has been read there comes back to one a remembrance of all the old pleasures, and with it a sense of thankfulness for so pleasant a friendship. Hence any book that has given us joy or peace or comfort is well worth not only good care, but a place for always; as a worthy bit of property.