But the symphony is sacred only because, and only so far as,
it renders the joy or the sorrow which we have felt. Surely, the
interpretation is less than the thing interpreted. Face to face with a
joy, a sorrow, would a symphony avail us? And, as for words, who shall
express their feebleness in midst of strength? The fettered helplessness
in spite of which they soar to such heights? The most perfect sentence
ever written bears to the thing it meant to say the relation which the
chemist's formula does to the thing he handles, names, analyzes, can
destroy, perhaps, but cannot make. Every element in the crystal, the
liquid, can be weighed, assigned, and rightly called; nothing in all
science is more wonderful than an exact chemical formula; but, after all
is done, will remain for ever unknown the one subtle secret, the vital
centre of the whole.
But the souls who have a "genius for affection" have no outer dome, no
higher and more vital beauty; no subtle secret of creative motive force to
elude their grasp, mock their endeavor, overshadow their lives.
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