Gissing on music

To humanise the multitude two things are necessary - two things of the simplest kind conceivable. In the first place, you must effect an entire change of economic conditions: a preliminary step, of which every tyro will recognise the easiness; then you must bring to bear on the new order of things the constant influence of music. For, work as you will, there is no chance of a new and better world until the old be utterly destroyed. Destroy, sweep away, prepare the ground; then shall music the holy, music the civiliser breathe over the renewed earth, and with Orphean magic raise in perfected beauty the towers of the City of Man.