In old Chinese literature it is told that when the painter Lao Keng felt his end drawing near, he called his pupils to him, to take delight in the sight of them, to bestow upon them his last blessing, and to bid them farewell before setting out on that journey from which no one returns.

The pupils flocked to him and found him in his room, seated at his table, though he no longer pos-sessed strength enough to lift the brush. They pressed him to return to his bed and seek rest, but he shook his head in refusal and said: I find no escape — these pigments and brushes having been my companions through all my days — from being among them at the hour of my departure from them.

The pupils knelt before him, expecting to hear what he wished to impart to them; but many of them could not contain themselves for grief, and they wept and sobbed. Lao Keng looked at them in astonishment and said: Why do I see you shedding tears, instead of rejoicing and making merry at this banquet to which I have invited you, that you might share in the most delightful thing man enjoys in this life?

Then he smiled into their faces. His pupils dried their tears on the bands of their long silken sleeves, and one of them spoke and said:

Beloved master, forgive our weak-ness. We wept just now because our hearts are filled with sorrow at what we see of the smallness of your portion of this life's blessings. You have no wife to weep for you, and no sons to carry you to the grave and offer the gods gifts for your soul. You have spent all the days of your life laboring at your work, its bondsman from the hour of dawn until after sunset, while we find that the least of the money-changers in our black

markets has amassed more wealth than you were able to earn. You have given mankind gifts with both hands full, and they accepted what you gave — yet without heeding your want, or thinking it needful to supply your need. Have the gods, then, shown you mercy? We, who shall follow in your footsteps after your departure from us, wish to put to you one question: was your attainment of the summit of art worth all these great sacrifices of yours?

Here the old man slowly raises his head, and there flashes in his face a gleam like that which glitters in the face of a warrior at the hour of his greatest victory; then he says:

Yes — my sacrifice has received more than its worth in recom-pense, for I have been rewarded for it beyond what I ever expected. You spoke the truth, man: I have no wife and no child; and moreover most of my days were passed in hunger, and today, when I am close upon a hundred years, were it not for the generosity of certain friends I should have neither shelter nor clothing. That is because I banished from my mind every hope of gain, so that I might consecrate myself to my art alone. And how should I not turn my face away from the love of owning and acquiring, when I hate, among men, to answer trickery with trickery and greed with greed? And in obeying the call of the heart — that hidden voice which commanded me to walk my road alone — I have won the loftiest aim to which man can aspire in this life.

At this the eldest of the pupils answered: Beloved master, will you make your parting blessing to us the explanation of what you have called "the loftiest aim to which man can aspire in this life"?

Here the master's eyes shine with

a strange light; then he rises from his seat and walks with slow, trembling steps toward a wall on which hung the painting dearest of all to his heart, showing a blade of grass, set down by the strong strokes of his brush in loud pigments speaking with life. Yet the picture of this blade was a very revelation of inspiration: the grass in it seemed a living thing that almost breathed. It was not a drawing of grass only; it enfolded within its depths the spirit enfolded in every blade of grass like it that has grown upon the face of the earth since the beginning of creation.

Pointing to the painting, the master said: There is my answer to your question. In creating this painting I made myself the equal of the gods, for I too, like them, was able to touch the fringe of immortality. And here he blessed his pupils; they carried him to his bed, and he gave up the ghost.

And I too love in music that which holds such a spirit as that by which Lao Keng was able to touch the fringe of immortality. Better for a man to spend his life creating even the most trifling of things than to live without the longing for creation ever leaping in his heart.

Every artist of genius whose paintings the museums have trea-sured up, or the choicest of whose works — all of them worshippers of beauty, who composed their poems to it, carved their statues for it, sang it their melodies, and excelled in their dances for it — all were expressing it as a beautiful expression of a sincere

feeling for all the joys and pains that stir in the heart of life.

I love in music that in which visions take shape — and there are no visions except where the performance is fine. I listen to the