"Such are the defects which the absolute perfection of music, and its defective application to language, may introduce into the Opera. And here it may be remarked that the languages the most apt to conform to all the laws of measure and of melody are those in which the duality of which I have spoken is the least apparent, because music, lending itself to the ideas of poetry, poetry yields, in its turn, to the inflections of music, so that when music ceases to observe the rhythm, the accent and the harmony of verses, verses syllable themselves, and submit to the cadence of musical measure and accent. But when a language has neither softness nor flexibility, the harshness of its poetry hinders its subjection to music; a good recitation of verses is obstructed even by the sweetness of the melody accompanying it; and one is conscious, in the forced union of the two arts, of a perpetual constraint which shocks the ear, and which destroys at once the charm of melody and the effect of declamation. For this defect there is no remedy; and to apply, by compulsion, music to a language which is not musical, is to give it more harshness than it would otherwise have.... [Sidenote: MUSIC AND PAINTING.] "Although music, as an imitative art, has more connection with poetry than with painting, this latter is not obliged, as poetry is, at the theatre, to make a double representation of the same object; because the one expresses the sentiments of men, and the other gives pictures merely of the places where they are, which strengthens much the illusion of the whole spectacle.... But it must be acknowledged that the task of the musician is greater than that of the painter. The imitation expressed by painting is always cold, because it wants that succession of ideas and of impressions which increasingly kindle the soul, all its portraiture being conveyed to the mind at a first look. It is a great advantage, also, to a musician that he can paint things which cannot be heard, whilst the painter cannot paint those which cannot be seen; and the greatest prodigy of an art which has no life but in movement is, that it is able to give even an image of repose. Sleep, the quietude of night, solitude, and silence, are among the number of music's pictures. Sometimes noise produces the effect of silence and silence the effect of noise, as when one falls asleep at a monotonous reading and wakes up the moment the reader stops.... Further, whilst the painter can derive nothing from the musician, the skilful musician will not leave the studio of the painter without profit. Not only can he, at his will, agitate the sea, excite the flames of a conflagration, make rivulets run and murmur, bring down the rain and swell it to torrents, but he can augment the horrors of the frightful desert, darken the walls of a subterranean prison, calm the storm, make the air tranquil and the sky serene, and shed from the orchestra the freshest fragrance of the sweetest bowers.