2, in which the formation of figures is very distinct.
The pregnancy and significance of each of these tiny musical "words" (or figures, as we are to call them),--small and apparently imperfect as they are,--can best be tested by concentrating the attention upon each as if it stood alone upon the page; it is such vitality of the separate particles that invests a musical masterwork with its power and permanency of interest.
* * * * * * DEFINING THE FIGURES .-- It is not always easy to distinguish the figures in a melodic sentence.

While they are unquestionably analogous to the words in speech, they are by no means as concrete, nor are they separated as distinctly, as the words upon a written or printed sheet.
This is in keeping with the intangible quality of music, and the peculiar vagueness of its medium of expression; the quality which veils its intrinsic purport from the mass of music admirers, and lends it such exquisite and inexplicable charm to all hearers alike.
In a word, it is not the common practice for a composer to cut up his melodic sentences into separately recognizable small particles, by distinctly marking each component _figure_.

Here and there it is done, by way of contrast, or emphasis, or for a definite rhythmic effect,--as shown in Ex.

2 and Ex.6.

But more generally the figures are so closely interlinked that the whole sentence may impress the hearer as one coherent strain, with an occasional interruption.