So, my dear, dark-bright child of song, when I bade thee open, out of the beaten thoroughfare, paths into the meads and river-banks at either side of the formal hedgerows, rightly dost thou add that I enjoined thee to make thine art thy companion.

In the culture of that art for which you are so eminently gifted, you will find the ideal life ever beside the real.

Are you not ashamed to tell me that in that art you do but utter the thoughts of others?
You utter them in music; through the music you not only give to the thoughts a new character, but you make them reproductive of fresh thoughts in your audience.
You said very truly that you found in composing you could put into music thoughts which you could not put into words.

That is the peculiar distinction of music.

No genuine musician can explain in words exactly what he means to convey in his music.
How little a libretto interprets an opera; how little we care even to read it! It is the music that speaks to us; and how ?--Through the human voice.