1915] on Music and Poetry 523 



comprehensive for our present purpose, and which may be stated 

 as follows : 



1. Words develop dejiniteness of outline and tend to vitalize hy that 

 which they indirectly suggest to the mind, whereas music tends to 

 develop direct expression of the vitalities themselves. 



Perhaps this divergence becomes clearer by analogy with the arts 

 of line and colour in painting ; the one gives definition of image, 

 indicating, e.g., a church tower, a tombstone, or a gate against the 

 sky ; the other gives vitality and possibly superhuman beauty to the 

 picture. One excels in minuteness of suggestion, and moves us in- 

 directly by the force of the associations it quickens ; the other excels 

 in vastness, variety, or magnitude of suggestiou. This particular 

 analogy is doubly helpful because it enables us to see, further, that 

 as colour can fulfil the function of line, and as line upon line in 

 shading can simulate colour, so music may sometimes fulfil the func- 

 tion of words by its definiteness, and word upon word may be so 

 accumulated as to amount to something like music in monochrome, 

 not with the rich colours of tone, but with the shadings and tints of 

 verbal art. The second main fact is this : 



2. The device of repetition acquires different significances in the 

 two arts. 



Repetition in art has its vital uses and its formal uses. In verbal 

 art you will readily see that repetition of word or phrase is mainly 

 used to quicken emotion ; it augments feeling and rather dilutes 

 thought. This is the secret of repeating a battle-cry, when men are 

 not wanted so much to think as to rush on and act. Repetition in 

 music, on the other hand, though also emotional, is primarily a con- 

 structive device. I think the difference of the mental appeal of the 

 two arts is well conveyed in the words information and conformation, 

 or by the companion words instruction and construction. Words 

 quicken thought by processes of information, music by processes of 

 conformation. Thouglit-quickening poetry eschews repetition and 

 pours in more informing words, whereas thoughtful music will be as 

 full of recurrence of rhythms and inflections as its conformation 

 needs ; it will fulfil its design much as a cathedral does by arch upon 

 arch, window upon window, pillar after pillar. It may easily be 

 seen that this second divergence can be fatal to the partnership. 

 It has led to the most amusing failures in oratorio ; I dare not pause 

 to describe them. It is far pleasanter to observe that the device of 

 repetition can be so used as to fulfil both ends simultaneously. A 

 convincing instance of it is to be found in a passage in the savage 

 triumph song of Deborah and Barak : 



At her feet, he bo\yed, he fell, he lay : 

 At her feet, he bowed, he fell : 

 Where he bowed, 



There he fell, 

 Dowu, 



Dead. 



