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December 26, 2007
music of the soul
The notes, he said, were not heard only with the ears, but with the whole body, eyes, fingers, and feet; if the ear failed sometimes, the hand would find the right note without its aid, by a strange, intuitive genius of its own. Besides, the audible tones were, after all, false, but he who possessed the divine gift of music carried within him an invisible instrument. On this instrument the soul played; its strings gave forth ideal notes, and upon it the great tone poets had composed their immortal works. The external music, which was borne on the air of reality and heard with the ears, was nothing but a wretched simulation, a stammering attempt to say the unsayable. It resembled the music of the soul as the statue modeled by hands, carved with a chisel, and meted with a measure, resembled the wondrous marble dream of the sculptor, which no eye ever beheld, and no lip ever praised.
Jens Peter Jacobsen - Niels Lyhne
Posted by amin at December 26, 2007 2:48 AM