be the greatest of the arts. Is it not the one which strikes deepest
to the soul? You see in painting no more than it shows you; in poetry
you have only what the poet says; music goes far beyond this. Does it
not form your taste, and rouse dormant memories? In a concert-room
there may be a thousand souls; a strain is flung out from Pasta's
throat, the execution worthily answering to the ideas that flashed
through Rossini's mind as he wrote the air. That phrase of Rossini's,
transmitted to those attentive souls, is worked out in so many
different poems. To one it presents a woman long dreamed of; to
another, some distant shore where he wandered long ago. It rises up
before him with its drooping willows, its clear waters, and the hopes
that then played under its leafy arbors. One woman is reminded of the
myriad feelings that tortured her during an hour of jealousy, while
another thinks of the unsatisfied cravings of her heart, and paints in
the glowing hues of a dream an ideal lover, to whom she abandons
herself with the rapture of the woman in the Roman mosaic who embraces
a chimera; yet a third is thinking that this very evening some
hoped-for joy is to be hers, and rushes by anticipation into the tide
of happiness, its dashing waves breaking against her burning bosom.
Music alone has this power of throwing us back on ourselves; the other
arts give us infinite pleasure. But I am digressing.

"These were my first ideas, vague indeed; for an inventor at the
beginning only catches glimpses of the dawn, as it were. So I kept
these glorious ideas at the bottom of my knapsack, and they gave me
spirit to eat the dry crust I often dipped in the water of a spring. I
worked, I composed airs, and, after playing them on any instrument
that came to hand, I went off again on foot across Italy. Finally, at
the age of two-and-twenty, I settled in Venice, where for the first
time I enjoyed rest and found myself in a decent position. I there