The Fine Arts and Their Uses; Essays on the Essential Principles and Limits of Expression of the Various Arts, with Especial Reference to Their Popular Influence

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 Excerpt: ... of no prurient suggestiveness. However gloomy and morbid a man's mind may become, Music can supply no fuel for his melancholy. It may be light, trivial, even foolish, but it can never be directly harmful. It is well that that which is thus the best and purest of our aesthetic pleasures is also the one which moves us most deeply; and we should do wisely to cultivate it even more than we do. We are far too cold and calculating at the present day. We seem afraid to let people think that we care in our hearts for anything. Music will at least help us to feet. We sorely need the aid of some influence on the side of enthusiasm, of earnestness in work, and sincerity of pleasure; something which will tend to break down the make-believes of social pastime, and the cant of conventional service. More than anything in the world, Music will help us to realise the capacity for emotion within us: it is no mere toy, it is the expression of a part of our nature as important as those reasoning faculties which alone the modern creed adores. The Puritans, who think it unfit to be a prominent feature in religious worship, either do not care for it nor understand its powers and functions; or they are not willing to consecrate all--even their aesthetic and intellectual part--to the service of God. Certainly to those who truly love it, Music is no light and trivial thing. It is almost too beautiful; and sometimes the sense of its perfectness is accompanied by a consciousness of our inability to grasp it which is almost a pain. Mr Baring-Gould has used this very beautifully as an argument for the immortality of the soul. Music seems to tell of something altogether above us and beyond us, and the thoughts which are born of it lie indeed far too deep for tears. Surely we shall under...