Whence comes this breadth of feeling, this grasp of musical expression? It is certain that it comes not from his teacher; for his father alone has filled that capacity, and it does not show itself in his performance; and again, the only unsatisfactory part of the boy’s playing is clearly the result of mannerisms such as the second-rate conductor of a provincial orchestra would, without fail, extol and inculcate. No; it is clear that the swing of rhythm, the determination of attack, the delicacy of sentiment, must come from a man’s heart beating within that boyish frame, and a man’s mind shining through that childish head. Could one forget the name of the performer for one instant, and shut from one’s eyes his physical presence, it were a man that was revealing to us the secrets of the notes. The rife experience of years must needs precede such rendering of musical thought; an experience earned in many a fight with varying fortune, in sympathy with many a tale of woe, in rejoicing over many a glimpse of Love and Brotherhood.
Yet ten short years are all his tale! What magician could crowd into that tiny space the parti-coloured pictures of a fevered life of energy? No, it must be that the child has lived upon this earth before, has borne his lance in the thickest of the fray, has achieved distinction in some great branch of art and garnered up a store of thought and feeling, into the inheritance of which his heir, himself, has entered. He may squander it again; alas, so many have before; but there it is, for him to use aright or wrongly, and serious is the charge imposed upon his guardians that they shall lay the lesson to heart that to whom much is given, from him shall much be expected. But with that aspect of the case it is not for us here to deal. We have only adduced this boy’s genius as one of the indications that life is in its succession a far more complex problem than the materialists or the orthodox religionists would lead us to believe. There are countless other suggestive little facts of early talent that must have come within the circle of the daily life of each of us; but without the thread of Karma whereon to string them, we pass them by; and it is only when some remarkable phenomenon, such as that of Josef Hofmann, bursts upon the world, that men fall to wondering. Yet it is by the accumulation of small details that a philosopher like Darwin worked out his scheme of natural evolution; and it is by the testing of such a theory as that of re-incarnation by many a little hitherto unexplained incident that we shall find its worth. Nor is it merely as a curious prying into mysteries that we should regard such research; for, once let a man convince himself that though “Art is long,” yet Life, in its recurrence, is longer, he will find in the thought that he is really laying up treasure in heaven (the lives to come), encouragement, despite all temporary failure, to do whatsoever his hand findeth to do with all his might.
W. Ashton Ellis.
FEAR.
Why fearest thou the darksome shades
That creep across the path of life?
Why tremble at the thought of strife
That oftentimes the soul invades?
Why sicken at the thought of ills?