PULSE AND IIEYTIIM. 431 



consciously to himself, and for want of a more intimately sympathetic 

 conductor, a ijliysical metronome was within him deflecting his rhythm 

 to its standard? Contrary to the other arts, music has its birth and 

 being entirely from within the human brain, and from within has 

 been impressed a beat of far more rapid rate than the ictus of the re- 

 current industries already cited on its musical product. The sug- 

 gestions all this calls forth are of course unlimited. To one we may 

 give our fancy free rein. Mr. James Huneker in his exhaustive sum- 

 ming up of Chopin's music states that master's favorite metronome 

 sign to be 88 to the minute. As 'people with considerable sensibility 

 of mind and disposition have generally a quicker pulse than those 

 with such mental qualification as resolution and steadiness of temper,' 

 could one consider that the ailing Chopin's pulse helped his rhythmic 

 tendency to 88, while the resolute steady Beethoven's was normal? 



The arm of knowledge is long; it needs no yardstick with which to 

 measure the stars. Can it feel the pulse of those who have long since 

 crossed the boundaries that separate this world from the next? 



