A
strain of music reminds me of a passage of the Vedas, and I
associate with it the idea of infinite remoteness, as well as of
beauty and serenity, for to the senses that is farthest from us
which addresses the greatest depth within us. It teaches us
again and again to trust the remotest and finest as the divinest
instinct, and makes a dream our only real experience. We feel a
sad cheer when we hear it, perchance because we that hear are not
one with that which is heard.
Therefore a torrent of sadness deep,
Through the strains of thy triumph is heard to sweep.
The sadness is ours. The Indian poet Calidas says in the
Sacontala: "Perhaps the sadness of men on seeing beautiful forms
and hearing sweet music arises from some faint remembrance of
past joys, and the traces of connections in a former state of
existence." As polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain
in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The
hero is the sole patron of music. That harmony which exists
naturally between the hero's moods and the universe the soldier
would fain imitate with drum and trumpet.
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