Spirit and Music | Page 4

rat."

From which it appears evident that the actual words used as a soporific
allow considerable latitude of choice.
No doubt Pan piped, and the Nymphs danced to his music in their
woodland groves, much as the poor kiddies in the slums and alleys of
our smoke-ridden towns dance to-day when the Italian organ man
comes round with his instrument. The melody and rhythm float out and
call to the music lying hid in their hearts, and their self responds.
Something within them demands instant expression, and they forget
their slums in dancing their merry measure, till the music stops and the
Italian passes on to raise Fairyland in the next slum. Music has given
them a glimpse of something outside their dull and prosaic
surroundings, it has touched their hearts with a glamour which is a glint
of spiritual sunshine in a drab world.
It was our privilege a dozen years or more ago to have a small share in
the active work of the Art Studies Association of Liverpool. This
organisation, due to the zeal of the Director of Education, existed for
the purpose of introducing the joys of Music to the children of the
various elementary schools. Concerts of different types were given for
their benefit in their own schoolrooms in the evenings, and as
admittance could not be given to all it was considered a privilege to be
able to attend. The pathos stills echoes in mind when we recall how
some of these children, boys and girls, would trudge out in the wet
evenings, often ill-nourished and insufficiently clad, to taste the joys of
music. Never was there any question of attention, for they were
eagerness personified, and it seemed as if they found there something
that their souls had missed. Too little do we realise that food and
clothing do not suffice us, young or old. We cannot live by bread alone:
our stomachs may be full and our souls empty. The spiritual side of our
nature demands sustenance and, as in the case of these hungry and
often wet little school children, it is the province of Music to minister
to that need. "A love of music is worth any amount of five-finger
exercises, and the capacity to enjoy a Symphony is beyond all
examination certificates."[2]
[Note 2: "Everyman and his Music." Scholes.]

A brass band will fill a whole street with glamour, and the normal
person finds it quite impossible to be out of step with the rhythm of the
march. Watch the way in which, as the Pied Piper of Hamelin drew the
children after him, the band draws the elders to the window and the
children to the street: the appeal is never in vain. Marching in time with
the music tired feet forget their weariness, and new strength comes
from the reserves of the greater self, liberated at the unspoken appeal of
melody and rhythm. The Salvation Army with its sometimes quite
excellent brass bands ever attracts a crowd of interested listeners. Their
enthusiasm is quite as real as, and perhaps even more real than, that of
a fashionable audience in the Queen's Hall: more real, because if the
Salvation Army fails to please it is always possible to walk away. If a
person is bored at the Queen's Hall a lack of moral courage will
probably detain him to the end of the performance. There is magic in a
bugle call, there are whole volumes of countryside history in a
posthorn's blast as the four-horse coach swings past. The beat of the
drum and the shrill pipe of the fifes carry a "come-along" atmosphere
with them, and if we fail to answer the call it is most likely with a
lingering feeling of regret that the days of adventure for us are past and
gone.
All this is the incidental music of the highways and byways, but as a
perennial stimulant for the emotions we call for Music's aid in many
circumstances. Does not the villain of the piece enter and take the stage
to a suggestively diabolic tremolo in the orchestra, and is not the
lovemaking also conducted to an appropriately sensuous
accompaniment, sufficiently subdued, to keep the emotions susceptible
and fluid? Could the villain enter with the same éclat to a stony silence,
or the lovemaking thrill in the same way without the moral support of a
few well-chosen harmonies? It may be that in heightening the
emotional element we correspondingly diminish the appeal to the
intelligence, and thus render ourselves less critical both of
stage-villainy and of fictitious lovemaking.
Nothing can be accomplished without music of some sort. We must
have it in our churches and our chapels, in our moving pictures, in
schools, at banquets and dinners, and in the restaurants. Could any

bride feel the same