ESSAYS .IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

There is, moreover,, his personal influence, the power of
his personality, the vision of a living man giving ex-
pression to emotions in a disciplined traditional art language-
For pure hideousness and lifelessness, on the other hand,,
few objects could exceed a gramophone. The more decorated
it may be, the more its intrinsic ugliness is revealed.*

Again, musical instruments such aft a vina, sitctr or-
sarangi have each their own individuality, they possess an
individual temperament which the artist must understand
and with which he can co-operate. The more, such an in-
strument is played on, the richer it becomes in association,.
and the more it will be valued by the musician. The-
manufacture of such instruments is a means, of culture to-
the craftsman; not so the mechanical production of the-
various parts of a gramophonB* or harmonium in great,
factories, where each part is made by a different man, and,
the-whole put together.by another. ^

The intervention of mechanism between the musician*
and the sound is always, -per se, disadvantageous. The-
most perfect music is. that of the human voice. The most*
perfect instruments are those stringed instruments where-
the musician's hand is always in contact with the string-
producing the sound, so that every shade of his feeling can
be reflected in it. Even the piano is relatively an inferior-
instrument, and still more the harmonium, which is only

* It should be understood that the condemnation of the gramo-
phone here given is concerned solely with its use aa a substitute for
music as an art. Just as machiuory has a due place in industry,,
**& even the gramophone has a use. This use is, howexer, as a
scientific instrument—hot as' 'an interpreter of human emotion.
lit the recording of songs, the analysis of musics for theoretical?
purposes, and espeeiallyvperhaps, in the exact study of the elaho-
rate.-melodyj of Indian musie, the gramophone has a placo. This,
however, .is work for the'few,, and; so far Irem this use being-
recognized hitherto, we have had tfierely the a&use and n6t the use*
before us. • > „. , '"; • • s '