Music is a cry of the soul

Music is a cry of the soul.

It is a revelation,

a thing to be reverenced...

an initiation into the mysteries

of the human soul.

This is an age of anarchy in art:

there is no authority, no standard,

no sense of proportion.

Anybody can do anything

and call it "art"

in the certain expectation

of making a crowd of idiots

stand and stare at him

in gaping astonishment and admiration.

Great men must be denied

(-vement is founded on denial—

denial of harmony, of coherence,

of intellectual lucidity

and spiritual content

—denial of music, in fact)

and great achievements scoffed at

in order that the little ones

become conspicuous.

Genius is not a mushroom growth.

Inspiration does not come

without hard work

any more than a crop of corn.

There is no short cut to glory.