on one thing, he can concentrate on anything; he increases his competence on the mental plane in the same manner that pulling chest-weights increases his competence on the physical.  The practice of meditation has moreover an ulterior as well as an immediate advantage, and that is the reason it is practised by the Yogis of India.  They believe that by stilling the mind, which is like a lake reflecting the sky, the Higher Self communicates a knowledge of Itself to the lower consciousness.  Without the working of this Oversoul in and through us we can never hope to produce an architecture which shall rank with the great architectures of the past, for in Egypt, in Greece, in mediaeval France, as in India, China, and Japan, mysticism made for itself a language more eloquent than any in which the purely rational consciousness of man has ever spoken.

We are apt to overestimate the importance of books and book learning.  Think how small a part books have played in the development of architecture; indeed, Palladio and Vignola, with their hard and fast formulae have done the art more harm than good.  It is a fallacy that reading strengthens the mind—­it enervates it; reading sometimes stimulates the mind to original thinking, and this develops it, but reading itself is a passive exercise, because the thought of the reader is for the time being in abeyance in order that the thought of the writer may enter.  Much reading impairs the power to think originally and consecutively.  Few of the great creators of the world have had use for books, and if you aspire to be in their class you will avoid the “spawn of the press.”  The best plan is to read only great books, and having read for five minutes, think about what you have read for ten.

These exercises, faithfully followed out, will make your mind a fit vehicle for the expression of your idea, but the advice I have given is as pertinent to any one who uses his mind as it is to the architect.  To what, specifically, should the architectural student devote his attention in order to improve the quality of his work?  My own answer would be that he should devote himself to the study of music, of the human figure, and to the study of Nature—­“first, last, midst, and without end.”

The correlation between music and architecture is no new thought; it is implied in the famous saying that architecture is frozen music.  Vitruvius considered a knowledge of music to be a qualification of the architect of his day, and if it was desirable then it is no less so now.  There is both a metaphysical reason and a practical one why this is so.  Walter Pater, in a famous phrase, declared that all art constantly aspires to the condition of music, by which he meant to imply that there is a certain rhythm and harmony at the root of every art, of which music is the perfect and pure expression; that in music the means and the end are one and the same.  This coincides with Schopenhauer’s theory about music, that it is