Upon that much we can probably agree without anyfurther argument. But when I say, "Art is universal,"there is an immediate danger that you will think of art(of either music or painting or sculpture or dancing) as if it were somesort of universal language, understood by everybody in every part ofthe world.
Which of course is not true at all. What happens to be the mostsublime form of music Io me, who am sitting at my desk upstairs-sayBach's Fugue in G minor-is just so much unpleasant noise to my poorwife, who within a few minutes will be copying these pagesdownstairs, far removed from the gramophone and the fiddle.