“The herald now
entered, bringing in the worthy poet Demodocus, a singer upon whom the Muse had
showered every gift of wondrous song. He had been given the power to rouse the soul
to ecstasy and to delight the ear. But not without pain had he received her boon, for the
Muse had taken away his sight that he might better attend to her song”
(The Odyssey, Book 8, Lines
71-75)
Ever since their chance
encounter with the Fenachrone battle cruiser (way back
in Chapter 4), Seaton
and his companions knew that the fate of the galaxy hung on the merest thread.
For they had learned that the doomed ship had, just moments before its
destruction, managed to dispatch a torpedo to its home planet with an account
of the battle. There was no doubt whatsoever that once that message was
received, a terrible vengeance would be wreaked upon both the Earth and Osnome
unless Seaton could somehow learn of a way to combat the Fenachrone superiority
in weaponry in time.
But the clock was ticking, and every hour that passed only
brought their seemingly inevitable doom that much closer.
But once they had made contact with the Norlaminians, and their
staggering knowledge of matter and energy became apparent, the crew of the Skylark could breathe a sigh of relief,
assured that their quest had been successful. They would triumph. Seaton called
for a celebration:
“We
ought to be able to take ‘em, with the Norlaminians backing us. … I’ll bet
they’ll be able to work out some solution. Relieved? That don’t tell the half
of it, guy – I feel like I’d just pitched off the Old Man of the Sea who’s been
riding on my neck! What say you girls get your fiddle and guitar and we’ll sing
us a little song? I feel good – they had me worried – it’s the first time I’ve
felt like singing since we cut that warship up.”
And sing they did, uninhibitedly, under the (totally mistaken) assumption
that, billions of miles away from the nearest listening ear, they could sing
for pure enjoyment and not for an audience.
Two days later, as the period for exercise had ended and that of
relaxation begun, Orlon, their Norlaminian host, asked whether they’d care to
hear some of his world’s music, “it [being] so different from your own.” At the
end of the performance, Orlon asked Mrs. Seaton what she thought of it. The
ensuing exchange, being arguably the finest
writing Edward Elmer Smith, PhD, a.k.a., “Doc” Smith, would ever achieve in his
long and illustrious career, bears quoting (practically) in full:
“What did you think of it, Mrs. Seaton?
Orlon asked, when the symphony was ended.
“Marvelous!” breathed Dorothy, awed. “I
never imagined anything like it. I can’t begin to tell you how much I like it.
I never dreamed of such absolute perfection of execution, and the way the
lighting accompanies the theme is just too perfectly wonderful for words! It
was wonderfully, incredibly brilliant.”
"Brilliant - yes. Perfectly executed
- yes. But I notice that you say nothing of depth of feeling or of emotional
appeal." Dorothy blushed uncomfortably and started to say something, but
Orion silenced her and continued: "You need not apologize. I had a reason
for speaking as I did, for in you I recognize a real musician, and our music is
indeed entirely soulless. That is the result of our ancient civilization. We
are so old that our music is purely intellectual, entirely mechanical, instead
of emotional. It is perfect, but, like most of our other arts, it is almost
completely without feeling. … Attend!"
At one end of the room, as upon a
three-dimensional screen, the four Terrestrials saw themselves seated in the
control-room of the Skylark. They saw and heard Margaret take up her guitar and
strike four sonorous chords in "A". Then, as if they had been there
in person, they heard themselves sing "The Bull-Frog" and all the other
songs they had sung, far off in space. They heard Margaret suggest that Dorothy
play some "real music", and heard Seaton's comments upon the
quartette. "In that, youngster, you were entirely wrong," said Orion,
stopping the reproduction for a moment. "The entire planet was listening
to you very attentively - we were enjoying it as no music has been enjoyed for
thousands of years. … When you have time, in some period of labor, we would
appreciate it very much if you four would sing for us again, would give us more
of your vast store of youthful music, for we can now preserve it exactly as it
is sung. But much as we enjoyed the quartette, Mrs. Seaton, it was your work
upon the violin that took us by storm. Beginning with tomorrow, my companion
intends to have you spend as many periods as you will, playing for our records.
We shall now have your music."
"If you like it so well, wouldn't you
rather I'd play you something I hadn't played before?"
"That is labor. We could not..."
"Piffle!" Dorothy interrupted.
"Don't you see that I could really play right now, to somebody who really
enjoys music; whereas if I tried to play in front of a recorder I'd be
perfectly mechanical?"
" 'At-a-girl, Dot! I'll get your
fiddle." …
Dorothy swept into "The Melody in
F", and as the poignantly beautiful strains poured forth from that
wonderful violin she knew that she had her audience with her. Though so
intellectual that they themselves were incapable of producing music of real
depth of feeling, they could understand and could enjoy such music with an
appreciation impossible to a people of lesser mental attainments; and their
profound enjoyment of her playing, burned into her mind by the telepathic,
almost hypnotic power of the Norlaminian mentality, raised her to heights she
had never before attained. Playing as one inspired she went through one
tremendous solo after another—holding her listeners spellbound, urged on by
their intense feeling to carry them further and ever further into the realm of
pure emotional harmony. The bell which ordinarily signaled the end of the
period of relaxation did not sound; for the first time in thousands of years
the planet of Norlamin deserted its rigid schedule of life - to listen to one
Earth-woman, pouring out her very soul upon her incomparable violin.
The final note of "Memories"
died away in a diminuendo wail, and the musician almost collapsed into Seaton's
arms. The profound silence, more impressive far than any possible applause, was
broken by Dorothy.
"There - I'm all right now, Dick. I
was about out of control for a minute. I wish they could have had that on a
recorder - I'll never be able to play like that again if I live to be a
thousand years old."
"It is on record, daughter. Every
note and every inflection is preserved, precisely as you played it," Orion
assured her. "That is our only excuse for allowing you to continue as you
did, almost to the point of exhaustion. While we cannot really understand an
artistic mind of the peculiar type to which yours belongs, yet we realized that
each time you play you are doing something no one, not even yourself, can ever
do again in precisely the same subtle fashion. Therefore we allowed, in fact
encouraged, you to go on as long as that creative impulse should endure—not
merely for our own pleasure in hearing it, great though that pleasure was; but
in the hope that our workers in music could, by a careful analysis of your
product, determine quantitatively the exact vibrations or overtones which make
the difference between emotional and intellectual music."
Read that
final line again, and this time not just for the humor of it, but for what it
says about all of our ever-so-misguided debates over the supposed “conflict”
between science and religion. Sadly, for all the ink spilled and syllables
uttered on the subject, there ought never to have been any conflict. For just
as one would never dream of using a hammer to drive in a screw, or a wrench to
dig a hole - in the pursuit of Truth, different tools are required for
differing tasks. If you wish to know the mechanics of wave erosion on a beach,
nothing beats precision measurement and accurate recording of data. If you want
to find out whether a new medicine will benefit those suffering from some
ailment, there’s nothing better than a double blind test with a control group
and use of placebos to obtain unbiased results. But when you want to know
whether a particular business practice is ethical or not, no amount of
laboratory testing is going to help you in the least, whereas a quiet hour or
two with Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, or perhaps Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle, could well give you the answer you’re
searching for. If you’re agonizing over whether you ought to propose marriage
to the woman you think you love, don’t hope for a solution from any computer
simulation or chemistry textbook. Your time would be better spent listening to Rachmaninoff’s Symphony Number 2, or in
sitting under a shady tree in the nearest park, watching the clouds pass
overhead. And if you’re agonizing over a job offer that means upending your
life for the prospect of an increased income, a bit of extra time spent in silent
prayer before Mass, or a Rosary or two before bedtime, would assuredly give you
a more definitive answer than working out the variables using a Bayesian
Decision Model.
The
Norlaminians may well have attained to the summits of scientific knowledge, but
somewhere along the way they lost track of their soul, and that loss was keenly
felt. It took the sublime art of Dorothy Seaton (who not that long before her
bravura performance told her husband the following: “I'm going to leave you for
a while. I can't really understand even a radio, and just thinking about those
funny, complicated rays and things you are going after makes me dizzy in the
head.”) to help them recover it… That is, if they did. Orlon’s closing words
cause one to doubt.
Not long
ago, I chanced upon a letter that British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams had
written to Swaffham Primary School, after he learned that a House there was to
be named after him: “I am very much pleased to think that one of your Houses is
going to bear my name. I am myself a musician and I believe that all the arts,
and especially music, are necessary for a full life. The practical side of
living of course is important, and this, I feel sure is well taught in your
school: such things teach you how to make your living. But
music will show you what to do with your life. It is necessary to know
facts, but music will enable you to see past facts to the very essence of
things in a way which science cannot do. The arts are the means by which we can
look through the magic casements and see what lies beyond.” (my emphasis)
Odysseus, the great
teller of tales, launched out on his story:
“Alcinous, majesty,
shining among your island people,
What a fine thing it is
to listen to such a bard
As we have here – the man
sings like a god.
The crown of life, I’d
say. There’s nothing better
Than when deep joy
holds sway throughout the realm
And banqueters up and
down the palace sit in ranks,
Enthralled to hear the
bard, …
This, to my mind, is
the best that life can offer.”
(The Odyssey, Book 9, Lines 1-8,
11)
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