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Art is not only here to embellish human existence. It is also here to express divine existence. In good concert music, especially, a man may find the most exalted refuge from the drab realism of his prosaic everyday life. For such music alone can express the ethereal feelings, the divine stirrings and echoes which have been suppressed by mundane extroversion. The third movement of Beethoven's Quartet in A Minor, for instance, possesses genuine mystical fervour. One may derive for a few minutes from hearing its long slow strains a grave reverence, a timeless patience, a deep humility, an utter resignation and withdrawnness from the turmoil of the everyday world.

-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 4 : Reflections On Specific Arts > # 338 -- Perspectives > Chapter 14: The Arts in Culture > # 55