Harmony

“ We must conclude therefore, that so long as we remain in the reality of harmony, all will be well, because all is always well in the world of harmony, and the world of harmony is the true world, the only true world—the world in which man was created to always live. ”

“ Are not these yearnings, this sense of incompleteness, prophecies of a future life? Our lives here are not the tones of perfect harmony, but rather like stringed instruments being attuned for celestial melody. ”

“ From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high Arise, ye more than dead! Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? ”

“ Is not this foretold in music, the natural language of these passions, whieh cannot express corruption nor any evil feeling, without ceasing to be music; which has no tone for any bad passion, and translates into harmony and beauty whatever it expresses? The blending of all these passions harmoniously into one becomes the central love, the deepest and most undivided life of man. ”

“ And the soul of such a person—if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one person where there exists no unity—becomes like a jangle of notes belonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous confusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of harmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place. ”

“ Harmony and melody—which have an equal share in the effects produced by sound—find their original type, it may be, in the double nature of the universe, and of human destiny considered socially and individually. Harmony, like the external world and its moving masses, presents us with various parts, linked together and arranged so as to subserve one and the same end. ”

“ Harmony is at home only in the ideal world—harmony which is unknown even among the gods harmony, whom I may know, and yet may never comprehend—whom I love, and may never possess—whom I long for, and who flies from me. ”

“ Of those, then, who maintain that the soul is harmony, what will any one say that these things are in the soul, virtue and vice? Will he call them another kind of harmony and discord, and say that the one, the good soul, is harmonized, and, being harmony, contains within itself another harmony, but that the other is discordant, and does not contain within itself another harmony? ”

“ First, to sooth and mollify the fierceness of the national character, and prepare the way for the lessons of the poets, which, delivered amid the sounding of melodious strings, when the soul was rapt and elevated by harmony, by the excitement of numbers, by the magic of the sweetest associations, took a firm hold upon the mind, and generally retained it during life. ”

“ All life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore, however unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the establishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious and unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler separate names—arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief means for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the most out of ourselves. ”

“ But to create that intensity of feeling, which solely identifies itself with the accordance of musical composition, the corresponding symphony of which awakens from their secluded cells the sweetest and tenderest affections, elucidates emotions of hope, fear, surprise, terror, and joy,—and as the stream of harmony flows along calls forth involuntary exclamations of delight, wonder, and admiration—demands a much more copious extent of subject and execution. ”

“ The song shall spread and swell as rivers do, And I will teach our youth with skill to woo This living lyre, to know its secret will; Its fine division of the good and ill.. So shall men call me sire of harmony, And where great Song is, there my life shall be." Thus glorying as a god beneficent, Forth from his solitary joy he went To bless mankind. ”

“ Music, they held, brought harmony, first into the human being himself, by putting an end to the conflict between his passions and his intelligent will, and then, as a consequence, into his relations with his fellows. Harmony within was held to be the condition of harmony without. ”

“ Rhythm and harmony may not always present that mysterious appeal to the soul that approves, and proves the worth of all. Yet, withal, I feel that some thoughts and emotions of patriotism, love of home, the song of nature, the mystery of creation, and the impenetrable depths of infinitude, may be found and approved. ”

“ But in truth, as concerned in itself and in our mode of expression, it is the marking off of all things and the uplifting and foundation of those things that are fixed and were unsettled, and the harmony of the wisdom—and indeed the wisdom of the harmony. ”

“ The harmony, if complete, would be a manifestation of a divine reality, and thus the love of God, the love of our neighbour, the love of nature, self-development, political life, scientific study, poetic contemplation, and philosophic speculation, would all unite in one comprehensive and glorious task. ”

“ "It's the quality of harmony, sir. The quality of being in harmony with your own soul. God having given you your own soul you are then in harmony with Heaven." ”

“ His domain is nature and the heart of humanity,—and the gifts he can bestow on those who meet him in the true spirit are marvelous and priceless indeed. The exquisite joys he can teach,—the fine sympathies,—the delicate emotions,—the singular method in which he will play upon two lives like separate harps, and bring them into resounding tune and harmony, so that all the world shall seem full of luscious song,—this is one way of Love’s system of education. ”

“ The rhythm, rhyme, melody, harmony are all an embodiment in sound, as distinguished from word, of what can be so embodied—the feeling of the poem, which goes before, and prepares the way for the following thought—tunes the heart into a receptive harmony. ”

“ All of those who were “geniuses,” all who were Idealists, true lovers of their kind, find here (in spirit life) their highest happiness in ministering to others, in moving upon the minds, hearts, spirits of those to whom they are adapted, until they perceive the Soul of Beauty and fashion it into their lives. The “Masters” of art: painters, sculptors, builders, construct their temples and adorn them with lives—the true images of beauty in thought, feeling, aspiration, achievement.
Music is perfect Harmony, of one life with itself and others, of many lives in all their highest purposes. ”

“ There is nothing which more ravishes and transports the soul, than harmony; and we have great reason to believe, from the description of this place in Holy scripture, that this is one of the entertainments of it.
13. And if the soul of man can be so wonderfully affected with those strains of music, which human art is capable of producing, how much more will it be raised and elevated by those, in which is exerted the whole power of harmony! The senses are faculties of the human soul, though they cannot be employed, during this our vital union, without proper instruments in the body. ”

“ But the attraction is also both pure and pleasurable; and it has just been shown, that we have in ourselves but one principle by which to recognize any corresponding emotion,--namely, the principle of Harmony. May we not then infer a similar Principle without us, an Infinite Harmony, to which our own is attracted? and may we not further,--if we may so speak without irreverence,--suppose our own to have emanated thence when "man became a living soul"? ”

“ Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly? ”

“ Harmony, in this sense—and remember that it is this which connoisseurs most usually allude to as quality—harmony may be roughly defined as the organic correspondence between the various parts of a work of art, the functional interchange and interdependence thereof. ”

“ "Music means harmony, harmony means love, love means — God!" ”

“ Because in everything, and especially in love, perfect harmony — absolute agreement in motion, voice, words, and in demonstrations of tenderness, is necessary in the person who moves, speaks, and manifests affection; harmony is necessary in age, in height, in the color of the hair, and in the style of beauty. ”

“ Harmony, in its most restrain'd Sense, is the apt and agreeable mixture of various Sounds. Such a Composition of them as is fitted to please the Ear. But every thing in a more extended Sense is harmonious, where there is a variety of Things dispos'd and mix'd in such apt and agreeable Manner. Things may indeed be thrown together in a Crowd, without Order or Art. And then every thing appears in Confusion, disagreeable and apt to disgust. But absolute Uniformity will give little more Pleasure than meer Confusion. ”

“ To this prolific source may be traced much of that many-colored interest which we take in their various forms as presented by the imagination,--in every thing, indeed, which is true, or even partially true, to the great Principle of Harmony, both in nature and in art. ”

“ Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly educated, or ungraceful if ill educated ”

“ The strange capacity which we have for being so affected by melody and harmony, may be taken to imply both that it is within the possibilities of our nature to realize those intenser delights they dimly suggest, and that they are in some way concerned in the realization of them. ”

“ "Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces who dwell in true meekness. There is a harmony in the sound of that voice to which Divine love gives utterance, and some appearance of right order in their temper and conduct whose passions are regulated. ”

“ Shining in order, like a living hymn
Written in light, awaking at the breath
Of the celestial dawn, and praising Him
Who made them, with the harmony of spheres. ”

“ Before the soul can see, the Harmony within must be attained, and fleshly eyes be rendered blind to all illusion. ”

“ No sound is uttered,—but a deep [333]
And solemn harmony pervades
The hollow vale from steep to steep,
And penetrates the glades. ”

“ To him who, neglecting the revelations of immediate duty, looks regretfully behind and fearfully before him, life may well seem a solemn mystery, for, whichever way he turns, a wall of darkness rises before him; but down upon the present, as through a skylight between the shadows, falls a clear, still radiance, like beams from an eye of blessing; and, within the circle of that divine illumination, beauty and goodness, truth and love, purity and cheerfulness blend like primal colors into the clear harmony of light. ”

“ When thus the heart is in a vein
Of tender thought, the simplest strain
Can touch it with peculiar power—
As when the air is warm, the scent
Of the most wild and rustic flower
Can fill the whole rich element—
And in such moods the homeliest tone
That's linked with feelings, once our own—
With friends or joy gone by—will be
Worth choirs of loftiest harmony! ”

“ A like harmony exists in our desires, our thoughts, our words. More than once on some evening when a passing shower has left the leaves glistening and the moist grass bright with a more vivid green, it has chanced that we ended our walk without uttering a word, as we listened to the patter of falling drops and feasted our eyes on the scarlet sunset, flaring on the hilltops or dyeing with a warmer tone the gray of the tree trunks. ”

“ And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering tree;
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence
Of God’s deep wisdom in the natural world!
It is to linger on ‘the magic face
Of human beauty,’ and from light and shade
Alike to draw a lesson; ’tis to love
The cadences of voices that are tuned
By majesty and purity of thought;
To gaze on woman’s beauty, as a star
Whose purity and distance make it fair;
And in the gush of music to be still,
And feel that it has purified the heart!
It is to love all virtue for itself,
All nature for its breathing evidence ”

“ That lofty brow, the home of all wise thoughts and high aspirations,—those lips of eloquent music,—that great soul, which trusted in God and never let go its hope of immortality,—that large heart, to which everything that belonged to man was welcome,—that hospitable nature, loving and tender and generous, having no repulsion or scorn for anything but meanness and baseness,—oh, friend, brother, father, lover, teacher, inspirer, guide! ”

“ They say to you, oh Poet, ‘Perfect those gifts of your higher nature—yet be not of them vainglorious, since, humanly speaking, they are not yours, but lent for a purpose, and the brief space of earth-life.’ Look upon every beautiful thought, every gift of expression, as the direction of One who has dowered you with the possibility of opening other eyes to the beauty, and other minds to the understanding of such expression. ”

“ A mature and mellow truth of sentiment, a conformity to the deeper experiences of life in every age, a fine humanity as well as a generous elevation of feeling, and some magical charm of music in his words, have enabled them to serve many minds in many ages as a symbol of some swelling thought or over-mastering emotion, the force and meaning of which they could scarcely define to themselves. ”