LANGUAGE AND MUSIC... •
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—When your contributor " Ignotus" cries that "language is the devil," and strives to find comfort in the thought that perhaps music is a clearer, completer, more definite medium of expression, he reminds us of the French journalist who, only the other day, was punted by German pre-eminence in music. Pedantic in thought, clumsy in utterance, how does the Teuton prevail in the most abstract of arts? Is it, asked the French- man, that music is the most primitive, elementary, savage of arts, furthest removed from the pure intellect as expressed in a Frenchman's pellucid prose? So the wheel swings full turn, and paradox cancels paradox.
But thought and emotion go hand in hand, are twin-sisters, and are inseparable. If Pythagoras sacrificed to the Muses for the Forty-seventh Proposition, was it not that its beauty was even more present to him than its logical-cogency, or, indeed, that he felt that its brilliant proof was delightful? Emotion stimulates intelligence, and intelligence awakens delight. It was a better, a more intelligent Germany that led the world's music, and a Frenchman's prose is not only logical but exquisitely beautiful.—I am, Sir, &c., J. D. A.
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