common conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment
which springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things; but if
they are willing so to inquire, they shall be accounted the class
that the author is most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted
its writing and the laying out of its plan will presently appear. For
the frankness of his disclosure the author might be willing to
apologize were his reverence for music less and his consideration for
popular affectations more; but because he is convinced that a love for
music carries with it that which, so it be but awakened, shall
speedily grow into an honest desire to know more about the beloved
object, he is willing to seem unamiable to the amateur while arguing
the need of even so mild a stimulant as his book, and ingenuous,
mayhap even childish, to the professional musician while trying to
point a way in which better appreciation may be sought.

[Sidenote: _Talent in listening._]

The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical
talent in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or
ability to sing acceptably when unaccompanied by that capacity. It
makes more for that gentleness and refinement of emotion, thought, and
action which, in the highest sense of the term, it is the province of
music to promote. And it is a much rarer accomplishment. I cannot
conceive anything more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women
perched on a fair observation point exclaiming rapturously at the
loveliness of mead and valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in
tenderness at the sight of moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful
wood, or dilating in reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and
then learning from their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they
are unable to distinguish between rock and tree, field and forest,