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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: a brass and a wooden instrument--a bassoon and horn--have so little
identity of tone, when they act on the same matter, the constituent
gases of the air? Their differences proceed from some displacement of
those constituents, from the way they act on the elements which are
their affinity and which they return, modified by some occult and
unknown process. If we knew what the process was, science and art
would both be gainers. Whatever extends science enhances art.
"Well, these are the discoveries I have guessed and made. Yes," said
Gambara, with increasing vehemence, "hitherto men have noted effects
rather than causes. If they could but master the causes, music would
be the greatest of the arts. Is it not the one which strikes deepest
Gambara |
