The Island of the Fay

The Island of the Fay (+Biography and Bibliography) (5X8po Matte Cover Finish):"La musique," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux" which in all our translations, we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as if in mockery of their spirit "la musique est le seul des talents qui jouissent de lui-même; tous les autres veulent des temoins." He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any other talent, is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment, where there is no second party to appreciate its exercise. And it is only in common with other talents that it produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of point, is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition, in this form, will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality and perhaps only one which owes even more than does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion.