of some powerful event or personality.  We may ebb and flow as a tide to the rhythm of a great melody or to the incantation of noble oratory.  The news of a great victory in these days would move us to our common centre and bring all our separate worlds into a mighty chorus of thanksgiving.  But even in these common emotions there are infinite shades of difference, and when they have passed we subside again into the world where we dwell alone.

Most of us are doomed to go through life without communicating the mysteries of our experience.

    Alas for those who never sing. 
    But die with all their music in them.

It is the privilege of the artist in any medium to enrich the general life with the consciousness of the world that he alone has experienced.  He gives us new kingdoms for our inheritance, makes us the sharers of his visions, opens out wider horizons, and floods our life with richer glories.

I entered such a kingdom the other afternoon.  I turned out of the Strand, which was thronged and throbbing with the news of the great advance,—­it was the first day of the battle of the Somme—­and entered the Aldwych Theatre.  As if by magic, I passed from the thrilling drama of the present into a realm

    Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing—­

into a sunlit world, where the zephyrs fan your cheek like a benediction and the brooks tinkle through the gracious landscape and melody is on every bough and joy and peace are all about you—­the idyllic world where the marvellous child, Mozart, reigns like an enchanter.  What though the tale of The Magic Flute is foolish beyond words.  Who cares for the tale?  Who thinks of the tale?  It is only the wand in the hand of the magician.  Though it be but a broomstick, it will open all the magic casements of earth and heaven, it will surround us with the choirs invisible, and send us forth into green pastures and by the cool water-brooks.

That was Mozart’s vision of the world in his brief but immortal journey through it.  Perhaps it was only a dream world, but what a dream to live through!  And to him it was as real a world as that of Mr. Gradgrind, whose vision is shut in by what Burns called “the raised edge of a bawbee.”  We must not think that our world is the only one.  There are worlds outside our experience.  “Call that a sunset?” said the lady to Turner as she stood before the artist’s picture.  “I never saw a sunset like that.”  “No, madam,” said Turner.  “Don’t you wish you had?” Perhaps your world and mine is only mean because we are near-sighted.  Perhaps we miss the vision not because the vision is not there, but because we darken the windows with dirty hangings.

“I’M TELLING YOU”