WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



writhing in its death agony without pity, 

 but no one can so listen to an animal's 

 shrieks of pain. This is as it should be, 

 for however wrong the head, the heart 

 should keep right. The ear also is in- 

 tensely personal. It makes no mistakes 

 about the identity of the voice it hears. 

 Once, on the deck of a Glasgow steamer, I 

 parted from a student friend, and we did 

 not meet again for thirty-three years. I 

 could never have known him then by sight, 

 for time sadly spoils eye memories, but his 

 voice told me who he was the moment he 

 spoke. All such facts reveal why through 

 the ear the prof oundest depths of being are 

 reached, because for some persons Music, 

 instead of being only sounds proceeding 

 from tongue, lips, or instruments, is to 

 them the speech itself of the innermost 

 soul. Beethoven composed some of his 

 finest symphonies after he had become 

 stone-deaf. 



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