But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through the eye.  The ear has an even higher function.  Perhaps the composer of great music speaks, in the course of the ages, to a larger number of human hearts than are touched by any other form of genius.  Thousands, listening enraptured to his strain, hear “the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound.”  And yet again there are those, and they are not a few, to whom even music never speaks so convincingly as when it is wedded to suitable words; for then two emotions are combined in one appeal, and human speech helps to interpret the unspoken.

It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishes the beauty of our public and communal life.  Khaki instead of scarlet, potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly things usurping the places aforetime assigned to beauty and splendour—­these are our daily and hourly reminders of the “great tribulation” through which the nation is passing.  Of course, one ought not to wish it otherwise.  Not, indeed, “sweet,” but eminently salutary, are these “uses of adversity,” for they prevent us from forgetting, even if we were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realities of the strife in which we are engaged.  And yet, and in spite of all this, beauty retains its sway over “the common heart of man.”  Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily obscure, the beauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting for the opportunity of Peace to reassert itself.

To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcome exception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, during the week now closed, has been enacted at Queen’s Hall.[*] There were critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contended that such pageantry was ill-timed.  They advanced against it all sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime of fairy-lore.  What was really intended, and was performed, at a great cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of all this.  All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial were displayed—­colour and form and ordered motion; noble music set to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above their ordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion.  The climax, wisely ordered, was our tribute of gratitude to the United States, and never did the “Battle-hymn of the Republic” sound its trumpets more exultingly.  For once, the word “Ritual” might with perfect propriety be separated from its controversial associations, and bestowed on this great act of patriotic pageantry.  It was, in the truest sense, a religious service, fitly commemorating the entry of all the world’s best powers into the crowning conflict of light with darkness.

[Footnote *:  Under the direction of Madame Clara Butt (May, 1918).]