skeleton. After all, simply to draw out the outlines of a picture is
not the work of an artist. Suppose you ask a master in music, "How am
I to produce the real result of stately sound?" He will tell you about
the common cord; he will tell you about the result of its changes and
its affinities, and will speak of those results as harmony; or he will
tell you about the gamut of sounds--sounds found in the wind upon the
mountains, found in the surging sea, found in the voice of childhood,
found in the whisper of your dreams--sound that is everywhere, sound
that wanders up and down this wild, wild universe. He will tell you
all that, and explain how in proper steps, in wise modulations, that
is melody, as the union of sounds is harmony. Is that enough? Would
that produce "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, that made you dissolve in
tears? Would that produce the chorus of Handel that made you almost
rise and march in majesty? Would that fill you with deep thoughts in
Beethoven, or fire you into joy in Mendelssohn? Oh, no! You have your
skeleton, but you have not one thing, the deepest; genius has to touch
with its fire the fact that is before you; you want the mystery of
life. And then suppose you turn to an artist and ask him to guide you
in painting, and he talks to you about light and shadow, about the
laying of the color, about the drawing of lines, about the exact
expression of the distant and the present, of the foreground and the
background, and having learned it all, you produce what seems an
abortion; you ask yourself, "What is the meaning of this?" Is this
enough to make you quiver, in Dresden, before the San Sisto, carried
away by those divine eyes of the "Mother of Eternity," or rent with
sorrow before the solemn eyes of the Child? Is this enough to fill you
with tears of delight when you enter the Sistine Chapel and see St.
John as he kneels with his unshed tears about the dead Christ? What is
there wanting in the touch of your artist? There is wanting genius;
there is wanting life. Or to take one instance more. You ask somebody