I have referred in this and in the preceding chapters to certain unities in symphonic music--in its several elements of rhythm, melody, and harmony, and in the whole. I have said that every object is unified in itself, and that it is a part of a greater whole. In this sense a symphony is a living thing; every member of it has its own function, and contributes a necessary part to the whole. But is not this equally true if we carry the argument into life itself and say: Here is a thing of beauty created by man; it is a part of him--one of his star-gleams; can he be complete if he loses it altogether? Can his spirit hope for freedom if he depends on his mind alone? Is the satisfaction of intellectual or material achievement enough? Would he not find in music a realm where he would breathe a purer air and be happier because he would leave behind him all those unanswerable questions which forever cry a halt to his intelligence? Moral idealism is not enough for the spirit of men and women, for, humanity being what it is, morality is bound to crystallize into dogma. The Puritans were moral in their own fashion, but they were as far away from what man’s life ought to be--under the stars, and with the flowers blooming at his feet--as were the gay courtiers whom they despised. Intellectual idealism is not enough, because it lacks sympathy. We all need something that shall be entirely detached from life and, at the same time, be wholly true to it. Our spirit needs some joyousness which objects, ideas, or possessions cannot give it. We must have a world beyond the one we know--a world not of jasper and diamonds, but of dreams and visions. It must be an illusion to our senses, a reality to our spirit. It must tell the truth in terms we cannot understand, for it is not given to us to know in any other way. FOOTNOTE: [12] The reason for this is one to which I referred in the chapter on “The Opera”--namely, that a work of art must not overstrain the capacities of those human beings for whom it was intended. CHAPTER VIII CONCLUSION