Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/70

64 two parts; first, that scientific appreciation which depends on natural organisation and highly cultivated taste; and, secondly, that love of sweet sounds, for the sake of the associations linked with them, and the feelings they waken from the depths of memory: the latter is a higher love than the former, and in the first only are we English deficient. The man who stands listening to even a barrel-organ, because it repeats the tones "he loved from the lips of his nurse"—or who follows a common ballad-singer, because her song is familiar in its sweetness, or linked with touching words, or hallowed by the remembrance of some other and dearest voice—surely that man has a thousand times more "soul for music" than he who raves about execution, chromatic runs, semi-tones, &c. We would liken music to Aladdin's lamp—worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch.