| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' The same dream came
to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying
the same or nearly the same words: 'Cultivate and make music,' said the
dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort
and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has been the pursuit of
my life, and is the noblest and best of music. The dream was bidding me do
what I was already doing, in the same way that the competitor in a race is
bidden by the spectators to run when he is already running. But I was not
certain of this, for the dream might have meant music in the popular sense
of the word, and being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me
a respite, I thought that it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple,
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: that sleepest." On these considerations it may become
intelligible that to some hearers Mr. Paine's cadences have
seemed unsatisfactory, their ears having missed the positive
categorical assertion of finality which the 6/4 cadence alone can
give. To go further into this subject would take us far beyond
our limits.
The pleasant little town of Portland has reason to congratulate
itself, first, on being the birthplace of such a composer as Mr.
Paine; secondly, on having been the place where the first great
work of America in the domain of music was brought out; and
thirdly, on possessing what is probably the most thoroughly
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
