The form of art which meant most to Darwin and into which he seemed to enter with the nearest approach to ecstasy was music. Here again, there is a good deal of theoretical discussion, which at times appears of a nature to dampen emotional enjoyment. But there can be no question that with Darwin as a young man the emotional enjoyment was there, and sincere, and profound, even at times overmastering. He does indeed confess that his musical ear was not fine or perfect: ‘I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have derived pleasure from music.’[338] But it is manifest that he did derive such pleasure, and went out of his way to seek it: ‘I also got into a musical set.... From associating with these men, and hearing them play I acquired a strong taste for music, and used very often to time my walks so as to hear on week days the anthem in King’s College Chapel.’[339] The love was for good music, too, not by any means for what was trashy or cheap. He liked Beethoven and Händel, had the natural instinct for the high and fine, in this as in other matters. Mrs. Darwin took him to classical concerts and he responded much more heartily than to the theater. He liked to have his wife and his sisters play to him, and when he was absent with the Beagle, he wrote: ‘I hope your musical tastes continue in due force. I shall be ravenous for the pianoforte.’[340] And the enjoyment was not merely perfunctory, but went deep, and took hold of the nerves. ‘At the end of one of the parts, which was exceedingly impressive, he turned round to me and said, with a deep sigh, “How’s your backbone?” He often spoke of coldness or shivering in his back on hearing beautiful music.’[341] The references to this thrill, this tension of nervous musical excitement, occur occasionally even in Darwin’s more scientific works. And then there is the recurring doubt, the mistrust of one’s sincerity, the desperate dread of sentimental convention in these artistic matters: ‘This gave me intense pleasure, so that my backbone would sometimes shiver. I am sure that there was no affectation or mere imitation in this taste, for I used generally to go by myself to King’s College, and I sometimes hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms.’[342]