MUSIC AND READING.
"Truly it has been said, a loving heart is the beginning of all
knowledge."--_Thomas Carlyle._
A beautiful thing in life is the friendship for books. Every one who
loves books pays some day a tribute to them, expressing thankfulness
for the joy and comfort they have given. There are in them, for
everybody who will seek, wise words, good counsel, companies of great
people, fairies, friends for every day, besides wonders we never see
nor dream of in daily life.
Some of the great men have told us about their love for books; how
they have saved penny by penny slowly to buy one, or how after the
day's labor a good book and the firelight were prized above anything
else. All tell us how much they owe to books and what a blessing books
are. Imagine the number of heart-thoughts there must be in a shelf
full of good books! Thoughts in tones or thoughts in words may be of
the heart or not. But it is only when they are of the heart that they
are worthy of our time.
You will not only love books, but gain from them something of the
thoughts they contain. We might, had we time, talk of classic books,
but as we have already talked of classic music we know what the
principal thing is. It is that good thought, out of the heart, be
expressed in a scholarly way--"Great thought needs great
expression."[51] This teaches us the necessity for choosing good books
for our instruction and for our entertainment. They present beautiful
pictures to us truthfully, or they present truth to us beautifully.
And these are the first test of a written thought--its truth and its
beauty.
If you read good books you will have in every volume you get something
well worth owning. You should bestow upon it as much care as you would
want any other good friend to receive. And if it has contributed help
or pleasure to you it is surely worth an abiding place. A fine
pleasure will come from a good book even after we are quite done with
it. As we see it in years after it has been read there comes back to
one a remembrance of all the old pleasures, and with it a sense of
thankfulness for so pleasant a friendship. Hence any book that has
given us joy or peace or comfort is well worth not only good care, but
a place _for always_; as a worthy bit of property.
In the early days of your music study, it will be a pleasure to you to
know that there are many and delightful books _about_ music written,
sometimes by music-lovers, sometimes by the composers. The written
word-thoughts of the composers are often full of great interest. They
not only reveal to us many secrets of the tone-art, but teach us much
about the kinds of things and of thoughts which lived in the minds of
the composers. We learn definitely not only the music-interests of the
composers, but the life-interest as well. It really seems as if we
were looking into their houses, seeing the way they lived and worked,
and listening to their words. Never afterward do we regard the great
names in music as uninteresting. The most charming and attractive
pictures cluster about them and it all gives us a new inspiration to
be true to music, loyal to the truth of music, and willing to do as we
see others have done, and to learn by doing. The lesson we get from
the life of every man is, that he must _do_ if he would learn.
I am sure you will spend many delightful minutes with the Letters of a
great composer. Every one is like a talk with the writer. They are so
friendly, and so full of the heart, and yet so filled with the man
himself. Especially the Letters of Mendelssohn and Schumann will
please you. In truth the Letters of all the composers are among the
most valuable music writings we have. In some way they seem to explain
the music itself: and the composer at once becomes a close friend. But
besides these read the biographies. Then it is as if we were
personally invited home to the composer and shown all his ways and his
life. And besides these, there are some friendly books full of the
very best advice as to making us thoughtful musicians; many and many
again are the writers who have so loved art--not the art of tone
alone, but all other arts as well--that they have told us of it in
good and earnest books which are friendly, because they are written
from the right place; and that you must know by this time is the
heart.
You will soon see when you have read about the composers that true
music comes out of true life. Then you will begin to love true life,
to be useful, and to help others. But all these things do not come at
once. Yet, as we go along step by step, we learn that art is
unselfish, and we must be so to enjoy it; art is truthful--we must be
so to express it; art is full of life--we must know and live truth in
order to appreciate it. And the study of pure thoughts in music, in
books, and in our own life will help to all this.