THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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a-dancing, while he carries reverently the divine spark which shall grow to light him toward the source of all that is beautiful? Oh lovers of soul music! Do not deaden this holy light by letting the dancers cast their shadow over you. The gates will never open unless the lamps of beauty shine down and wither all the false growths about the entrance. Uproot all flowers that have no fragrance. The music-flowers must give forth sweet fragrance, or be unworthy a place in the garden about the palace of music. That style of composition which is unworthy a place in the most reverent love of art, should be cast aside as faise. The flowers that God has planted in each artist’s soul must be watered with tears of reverent love and pure devotion, and the sunshine of sacrifice and of truth and of power and of beauty must shine direct, not through the colored glass of popular fancy.

And next comes the lamp of life. What can this be to us in the world of music? We listen to some wonderful performance in the way of vocal gymnastics or of finger dexterity, and critics say, “ admirable execution!” “ Remarkable technic! ” and we are silent or give assent because conventionality makes demand. Again, a true artist sits at the instrument, perchance breaking many set laws and rules, but now and again striking chords that flash like white light from highest Heaven into our own souls. The instrument may be poor, the voice imperfect, but the soul of the artist is there, living near to the source of light and life, and the life speaks forth. Would that more of those who struggle for the name of artist might begin within to fan into life the divine spark, if it be there, and if not, then cease to ply at art—go back—there is no room for triflers in this palace. All the outside polish of a common stone can noi discover a diamond; all the technic and outside finish can not create an artist. The true artist is a living thought of God, and though his path may oftentimes lead over rough ways, it is ever lighted by the lamps of life, which can not die.

The lamp of memory. Ruskin says: “It is in becoming memorial or monu­mental that true perfection is attained.” An architect conceives within his soul some vast structure; carefully he selects material that will endure, and carefully he builds; each pillar is in place, and the dome crowns all. The completed structure, though it appeals but to the eye while we are bound down to earth sense only, is like some grand oratorio that the soul may hear—music that has been caught and frozen into form. Like the architect, the musician longs to leave behind him just such noble work that may be a worthy memorial. As the architect scorns all tawdry ornament which detracts from the dignity of the building, so does the music builder scorn all light, trashy combinations of sound which may tickle the ears of the groundling, but which can not stand as memorial work. All true work must be memorial. The thought of the ideal demands that the lamps of future memory guide toward the leaving a worthy monument of the artist’s better self. The ideal that walks ever by the side of and outlives physical man; the ideal that compares with the real as eternity compares with time; the ideal self can never forget, even when long centuries have passed, and men have forgotten the dust that once was infused with life by that ideal.

Oh lovers of music, strive to have worthy monuments of your work! Hold in uplifted hands the lamp of memory, that its rays may be sent forward toward a grand memorial erected in honor of the God-given gift that is yours.

Obedience! Is not the lover of art a worshiper at art’s high altar? Will he not listen ever closely for the voice that commands his homage, and will not one who so loves follow without question, even through weary years of loneliness and toil? To obey, even though it seems to tear the heart from all the ties of earth-loves!

Surely ’tis a solemn thing to enter the gate—to cross the threshold of the palace of art—for one may not play at going in and out. There is no turning back without sacrilege. • A gift once laid upon the altar can not be recalled, and obedience is the law in the art world—obedience to the masters. One may not trifle with an art sub­lime. Far better take up some petty trade and be faithful thereto than seek to be an artist if the whole soul be not in deepest earnest. “ Better pursue a frivolous trade in