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Music, obeying the great laws that underlie all life and to which all the arts are subject, having for its means of expression the most plastic of all media, depending on intuitive perception of truth, not compelled to perpetuate objects, dealing with that larger part of man’s being which lies hidden beneath both his acts and his thoughts,—that which Carlyle calls “the deep fathomless domain of the Unconscious,”—music is the one perfect medium for this dream of humanity. In its expression of human emotions it enjoys the inestimable advantage of entire irrelevance. It does not have to develop a character or person, but only an attribute or quality. The “Eroica” symphony, for example, has all the force of a mythological epic in which the heroes are pure spirit-types of humanity, of no age or time—gods, if you will, and above human limitations.

This is the quality of music that makes it precious to us. It builds for us an immaterial world—not made of objects, or theories, or dogmas, or philosophies, but of pure spirit—a means of escape from the thralldom of every day.