For such things, however, our word-symbols do perfectly well, and such a symbolising of musical sounds must detract, I think, from the high mission of music: which, as I conceive, is neither to be an agent for expressing material things; nor to utter pretty sounds to amuse the ear; nor a sensuous excitant to fire the blood, or a sedative to lull the senses: it is a language , but a language of the intangible, a kind of soul-language.
— from Edward MacDowell: A Study by Lawrence Gilman
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