158 THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



positions. Great music and the great scenes of 

 nature affect us similarly. Both stir us to the core 

 and pervade us with the sense of infinity. In the 

 contemplation of either we enjoy, absorb and are 

 benefited, each according to individual capacity and 

 receptivity, just so much, no more, no less. 



Owing to its peculiar elemental power, its complete- 

 ness in and by itself, the universality of its message 

 and function, the indissoluble unity of its subject, 

 substance and form in melody, it is futile to compare 

 music with the other arts. Architecture is often 

 chosen for this purpose of comparison because like 

 music it is a presentative art, and certain analogies are 

 traced in its static rhythms and harmonies and the 

 mobile rhythms and harmonies of music. *' Archi- 

 tecture is frozen music," is a frequent quotation. If 

 there must be comparisons let them be sought in the 

 myriad recorded and mobile rhythms and harmonies 

 of nature and not in the other arts, whose subjects 

 are too specific and definite and fix the attention 

 upon the same single idea or group of ideas, thus 

 directing thought and feeling into the same definite 

 channels. There is however a broad common ground 

 which music shares with all the arts. Each art, music 

 included, has its peculiar form or vehicle of expression 

 in which each in its own way embodies human thought 

 and feeling. All art is self-expression, and every art- 

 work springs from the imagination. But the building, 

 statue, painting which we behold are finished per- 

 formances; each stands before us in its entirety; each 

 has been produced once for all time; each time we 

 look at it we behold the same performance; each such 



