Where vice has become congenial and the impure reigns
supreme, that which rouses and expresses noble aspirations and pure
emotions can find no room. Normal instincts may also be dulled, the
inner being made, as it were, musically deaf and dumb, by a false
education which stifles and dwarfs the finer feelings, or by
circumstances which permit these to remain dormant.
The emotional natures of human beings differ as widely in kind and
degree as the intellectual and physical natures. In some people
sensibility predominates, and the irresistible activity of fancy and
feeling compels the expression in rhythmic tone combinations of ideals
grasped intuitively. Thus musical genius manifests itself. No amount of
education can bring it into being, but true culture and wise guidance
are needed to equip it for its bold flight. "Neither diligence without
genius, nor genius without education will produce anything thorough,"
as we read in Horace. Other people with marked aptitude for musical
expression have reproductive rather than creative endowments.
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