seem like a splendid spontaneous outburst of poetical expression. But we know that their splendor and their spontaneous seeming is the result of elaboration, of erasure, of interlineation, of recasting. The thought we may believe came in a moment, but it was worked with consummate care and art into the form in which the poet gave it to the world. So it is even with melody, the most spontaneous-seeming part of music. We may be sure that even Mozart, most fertile of all composers in melody, the greatest master of instrumentation, elaborated his themes and his treatment of them, if not on paper, at least in his mind before he put his conceptions into score. And the reason, the occasion for this elaboration was the desired attainment of the highest possible perfection of form. I need hardly say to any musician that I am not speaking of technical form, either of harmonic progression or of the cast of a composition, as for example the sonata form, the symphonic form, the dramatic form, but of the form of intrinsic absolute value which appeals to the general craving for and appreciation of beauty. This beauty of form cannot be disregarded in any art without failure to attain the highest place in the world's estimation, no matter how marvellous and admirable the powers displayed in another direction. For lack of this excellence Rembrandt can never take the highest place, but must be content with the admiration of those who can appreciate his mastery of manipulation, a technical excellence. Of all great painters, Turner is most imperfect in this respect. But Turner can hardly be said to have dealt with form at all. Hence a certain weakness amid all his glory. He painted distance, light. Among painters he is the king of space, the prince of the powers of the air. Absolutely essential as beauty of form is in music, the reason of it, unlike that of the same quality in other arts, is beyond our apprehension. I at least find it so. I have heard it, and seen it upon paper, and considered it all my life. I have taken it in at eye and ear together. I have read and have pondered; but I never have been able to detect musical genius in its working, as I have, or have fancied that I have, done in other arts. I can find no reason for the existence of this beauty except that it is beautiful. I can see clearly, and I have sometimes thought that I could with some satisfactory approach to clearness tell in words, what the composer has done; but the how, and above all the why, is as much hidden from me as it was from him. For that it was unknown to him I am sure, not because I could not discover it, but from the very nature of the case.