age-long struggle with the powers of materialism and darkness. No breath of spirit is ever lost, and nothing devoid of it is ever permanent, either in music or in anything else. Sounds without sense or meaning are futile, notes without a heartfelt message are "returned empty" as they were sent forth, and practice without purpose other than mere self-gratification, agility, or display, is a magnificent and glorious waste of time. But Music, when its true underlying purport is discovered, is at once an inspiration and a most real means of achieving that fundamental object, for which our very existence here at this present moment is devised, namely spiritual growth and development.

Chapter IV

SPIRIT A LIVING FACT

Life is a diversity in unity, and the expression in countless different forms and shapes of the one fundamental reality, spirit. We ourselves are comprehended in this definition, being part of this fundamental spirit, and claiming thereby our divinity. Music also, as a part of life, is subject to the same explanation: and thus the spirit of Music is a real thing. The Muses of a Classical day typified this same idea of the spirit behind the form. Indeed man, spiritual as at base he is, can never rest finally satisfied with the outer semblance and form: just as the body craves sustenance, so does the spiritual part of him. No amount of physical satisfaction will ever allay the heart-hunger, and no flood of Rationalist thinking will ever put an end to the instinctive search after the Unknown God.

In spiritual law, as in natural law, nothing is ever lost. We study the physical, and by analogy we may learn much of the spiritual: we have not been left without guidance in the maze of life. But the first essential is that we should study those things which are open to us, and through them learn something of the wisdom that otherwise lies hidden. Nothing is lost: we see, as the hymn puts it, "change and decay," but the decay is only change of form, and death, in the form of extinction, simply does not exist. Even thoughts, transient and gossamer as they may appear, do their work in our brains and leave their permanent impress with us. Occultists further assure us that they are recorded in the eternal archives. It is said that there are the Akashic Records, in some subtle way which we cannot pretend to understand, imprinted in the ether. "This primary substance is of exquisite fineness and is so sensitive that the slightest vibration... registers an indelible impression upon it."[7] If this be so, then here is the story of all that has ever been, and all that is. In our own subconscious minds we know full well that there is such a perfect and complete record as to constitute an individual Judgment Book within of unimpeachable accuracy, and there seems to be nothing intrinsically unreasonable in the idea that there should be something of the kind on a world scale. Monumental histories of the traditional lost continent of Atlantis have been compiled, professedly from this source, and we find an interesting inkling of the same idea in the way in which objects will sometimes impress sensitive folk with their own history. Things sometimes have a "feel" about them, pleasant or the reverse, just as buildings acquire an aura and an atmosphere, sacred or convivial, or even unholy.

The musician, then, may obey Nature's universal behest, and change his form from the physical of to-day to the more tenuous of a finer realm. He may die: but his music lives on. He perhaps has played his part in the world symphony and, his present work finished, he lays his instrument aside. This body of ours is the instrument of the spirit: no wedding feast without a wedding garment, and no part or lot in the physical world without a body. The tuning of the body to delicate response and high endeavour enables the spirit to express its melody the better, and therefore it is incumbent upon the musician to cultivate a high standard of physical health. This does not mean the maximum of nourishment, combined with stimulants to compel a jaded appetite: on the contrary, artistic efficiency demands super-cleanliness and a tolerably rigid self-denial. Girth is no measure of artistic ability. But the body, sound or otherwise, is the instrument through which we play life's little tune, just as the pianist plays through his pianoforte. But when we have closed the pianoforte nobody supposes that we have extinguished the artist, or annihilated the music: we have merely put an end to its expression for the time. So when our instrument of the body grows old, worn-out, or decrepit, so that it can no longer answer to the dictates of the spirit within, we cast it aside, as an instrument whose keys are broken, or whose strings are for ever mute. Then the musician goes upon his far journey.

But long though the journey seem, it is a change of state rather than of place: as if from being cased in solid ice he now were buoyant in limpid water. His music and his melodies which were so great a part of him now constitute his real self, besides being for ever inscribed upon the roll of eternal remembrance. So the great musicians still live on, and when we claim that such-and-such an interpreter gives us the spirit of Bach, we may be saying more truly than we realise. There is no limit to the range of thought save the intrinsic nature of the thought itself. All thoughts seek their own, by the law of sympathy: like to like, fine to fine, and gross to gross. "Not all of us give due credit to the anomalous nature of love, reaching as high as heaven, sinking as low as hell, uniting in itself all extremes of good and evil, of lofty and low."[8] So when a man steeps himself in thoughts of a type, when he ponders over and lives in the music of a master, his thoughts span the realms and the ages, and he reaches that master, even if only to touch the hem of his garment. Then the master's thoughts are his, and he truly gives of the spirit of the music, for a measure of inspiration has been vouchsafed to him.

Whatever we dwell upon has its "tuning" effect upon our thoughts, and thus we reach some of the lore and wisdom of those who have trodden the way before us. The inventor and the discoverer are truly what the words imply: the inventor "comes upon" the new idea or principle, and the discoverer "uncovers" and makes plain. But all the ideas and all the new and novel discoveries, and all the laws, were there before: we only reach them when we have climbed to a sufficient height to be able to apprehend them. So the musician who reaches the spirit of Bach has, by the attunement of his thoughts and his aspirations, crept into the heart of the music and has tugged at the musician's heart-strings. He has touched the composer's soul, and henceforth he plays Music, not notes.

Again, Bach, and all the masters of Music have in their turn but discovered the Music that was already there. No man really creates, any more than the gardener creates an oak tree by the planting of an acorn. The gardener provides the necessary conditions in which the oak, already miraculously pent within the acorn, can unfold and develop. So the musician also provides the necessary conditions in which the spirit of Music can blossom and bear fruit. He need take to