80 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



perfect in all its parts, and yet, for want of this 

 necessary condition, which I have called musicality, 

 be wholly unable to produce musical sounds. For 

 instance : if you were to till the body of Paganini's 

 best fiddle with sand, and soak its strings in tallow, 

 Paganini might go mad, perhaps ; but twenty 

 Pagaiiinis, or one Paganini with a twenty- Paganini 

 power, which is the same thing, would not be able 

 to extract from it a single musical tone. Why ? 

 Because the instrument would have lost that neces- 

 sary condition which I call musicality the sand 

 and the tallow have destroyed it. " En caput ; 

 sed cerebrum non habet;" which, being inter- 

 preted into the vulgar tongue, for the benefit of 

 " earspoftfc," signifieth, " There is the fiddle ; but 

 where is its aptitude to discourse most excellent 

 music 9" I will make this clear in a moment.' The 

 first condition necessary to life, is organism that 

 is the fiddle : the second is vitality, or that condition 

 or manner of existence necessary to the production 

 of living actions that is the musicality, or that 

 particular mode of a fiddle's existence necessary to 

 the production of musical sounds ; viz. perfect free- 

 dom from sand and tallow, and all other impedi- 

 ments to musical sounds. And, as we have just 

 seen that a fiddle may exist perfect in all its parts, 



