The art of music, which moves one greatly toward nothing in particular; which supplies sounds but not a language for the mysteries of feeling; which easily carries a sensitive soul away from its sorrows or drowns it in tears, and all without offering a semblance of a practical solution; which orchestrates a greater fury, a more poignant jealousy, a sweeter note of bird, a harsher clang of weapons, than any human energy can even imagine to exist; this art with which marching soldiers sing away their fatigue, but not really; with which disconsolate lovers wing their hopes, but not really; with which the pious pipe themselves to heaven, but not really; with which, by strings and beaten skins, organ-pipes and blowing brass, an anaesthesia of ecstasy is produced, leaving one only the weaker against the dourness and doggedness of the devil; with which men and women hymn themselves home to God, only to lose Him when they leave the threshold of His house; which choruses from a thousand throats patriotism, defiance, self-confidence, but arms none of them with any useful weapon; which with drums and brass can send any lout to heroism without his knowing why; this art which burns up the manhood of its devotees -- who ever heard of a great tenor who was a great man, or even of a great musician for more than half of whose life one must needs not apologize? -- this art flourishes in Germany not without reason, and not for nothing. In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the part-song known to every college man in America, "On a Bank Two Roses Grew," as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will not deny the delights of music in Germany. In Berlin there is not a hall suitable for a musical recital that is not engaged a year, sometimes more, in advance.