The Music of Hindostan c8.s1.3

c8.s1.3

So an unnamed Indian treating of undatable personages writes history and criticism in one. Believe, he says, in the divinity of the elements of your art, and know that your carelessness and ignorance will maim them, and you will not murder a song; and it may be doubted whether the well-weighed epithets and refined distinctions of musical ‘appreciations’ do the thing any better, or indeed achieve their object so well.