[281] from Mozart, altogether parallel to these, in regard to the process of composing music. Such manifestations of genius are necessarily rare, and are, in the long run, the outcome, even more than the impelling force, of a firm and wholesome way of life. Libraries, galleries, museums, and fine buildings, with all their importance, are all secondary to that great human life of which they are, indeed, only the secretions or appendages. “My Madonnas” --thus wrote that recluse woman of genius, Emily Dickinson--“are the women who pass my house to their work, bearing Saviours in their arms.” Words wait on thoughts, thoughts on life; and after these, technical training is an easy thing. “The art of composition,” wrote Thoreau, “is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.”
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[281] from Mozart, altogether parallel to these, in regard to the process of composing music. Such manifestations of genius are necessarily rare, and are, in the long run, the outcome, even more than the impelling force, of a firm and wholesome way of life. Libraries, galleries, museums, and fine buildings, with all their importance, are all secondary to that great human life of which they are, indeed, only the secretions or appendages. “My Madonnas” --thus wrote that recluse woman of genius, Emily Dickinson--“are the women who pass my house to their work, bearing Saviours in their arms.” Words wait on thoughts, thoughts on life; and after these, technical training is an easy thing. “The art of composition,” wrote Thoreau, “is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.”
Boston, New York and Chicago. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.
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