518 Mr. Henry Walford Davies [June 11, 



been either to infuse life into existent form, or to give form to life. It 

 may, indeed, be regarded as axiomatic that Music and Poetry, manifest 

 life and form. But, like many other lovely things, they are distinguished 

 by a third attribute, hard to define, but none the less so real that we 

 generally deny that they are music or poetry at all until we have dis- 

 covered that they possess this attribute. It is a nameless quality to 

 which we apply numberless incomplete names. It is the choosing 

 force of man. It is present in artless things as whim or fancy, and 

 we call it irresponsibility. It must needs be present in all fine art, 

 and there it actually appears as responsibility. In its various aspects 

 we loosely call it, or the result of it, personality, fantasy, inspiration, 

 imagination, free-will, spontaneity, creativeness, enthusiasm, and all 

 sorts of other names. We delight in it. We admire it. Life is no 

 fun without it. Of course its greatest and commonest name is Love ; 

 and roughly we may say that to be intelligibly active for love is to be 

 an artist, while to be intelligibly active without choice, at some one 

 else's bidding, is to be an artizan. When the purpose in art is not 

 your purpose you are not the artist ; when it is so entirely your 

 purpose as to evoke a spontaneous, joyous act, you really arrive not 

 only at art, but at fine art. George Herbert expounded the practical 

 policy of all artizans who would be artists in his famous couplet 

 about sweeping a room. 



Now, Music and Poetry are everywhere acknowledged to be among 

 fine arts. I think it is well at this point consciously to resist the 

 confusion which arises from the frequent distinction between useful 

 and^??e arts. In the fundamental sense this distinction makes non- 

 sense. An art may be dull and useful, but it cannot possibly be fine 

 and useless. It may even be said that fine arts are those that 

 happen to be exuberantly useful. Just as felicitous prose is as much 

 fine art as poetry or oratory, so bare tones of voice in any prosaic 

 utterance, when lit with enthusiasm, become music in their inflection, 

 colour and rhythm. Sir Hubert Parry, writing on Melody in Groves's 

 Dictionary, says : " Melody probably originated in declamation 

 through recitative, to which it ha-: the closest relationship," and he de- 

 scribes how recitative " no doubt merged into melody at times, much 

 as prose in passages of strong feeling merges into poetry." Exuberance 

 and enthusiasm transform the dullest things. A short while ago I 

 showed the Temple organ diapasons of various dates to a literary 

 friend. A few days later I read with pleasure in the Spectator that 

 *' the soul of three centuries speaks from its keys." 



I think it is hardly sufficiently recognized that it is strong en- 

 thusiasm that carries words or notes into attractive or impressive 

 patterns, that enthusiastic energy actually makes for formal design. 

 It is easy to see that a striking design strengthens the mental appeal, 

 and thus we say that rhyme or rhythm makes facts more memorable. 

 It would be covering the ground better to say that they actually 

 augment life, and are the spont'ineous expression of augmented life. 



