Apologia DiffidentisDalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock)
Philosophy
Apologia Diffidentis
Dalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock)
Bashfulness
Moreover, the city will give the shy man all the consolations of art,
philosophy and literature of which his education or experience may have
made him worthy. He can see great pictures or read great books at little
cost, and find in them the truest of friends in need. It is so obvious
that a solitary of any culture will find relief with such companions,
that here I take for granted his resort to their aid, and will only
mention two resources from which the real recluse often draws less
advantage than he might, I mean orchestral music and the drama. Any man
of feeling who hears a great symphony ceases to be self-centred with the
first movement; he goes out of himself, and rides upon waves of sound,
exalted by this majesty of collective effort. No other music thrills his
whole being like this, which sweeps him with all around into the very
course of changing fates. In the confluence of dim hopes and passions
which rise above the harmonies like smoke-wreaths riding the red flame,
the soul glows interfluous with other souls and is elated with the
inspiration of their presence. He bears arms exulting who never had
comrades till now; his will is absorbed in confederate joy and human
force unanimous. In this abandonment of the whole being, the diffident
know their fellows near, and in the ecstasy of shared emotion learn the
full measure of their humanity. Philosophers in all ages have known and
taught the power of music in compelling ten thousand to the love of one,
and so ennobling an infinite multitude in the glow of a common emotion.
Sound was the first instinctive language, one for man and winds and
waters; and music, which is the development of this primeval converse,
leaving to grammars the expression of cold and abstract thought, has
gathered about her in her mountain caverns the echoes of all sighs sad
or passionate, of all inarticulate cries born of aspiration or desire,
and there blended them into eternal harmonies which at her word flow
forth and join the hearts of men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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