The channels are shorter just in proportion to their openness. If the way from the brain to the ends of the fingers is perfectly clear, the brain can guide the ends of the fingers to carry out truly its own aspirations, and the honest expression of the brain will lead always to higher ideals. But the channels cannot be free, and the artist will be bound so long as there is superfluous tension in any part of the body. The artificial is tension in its many trying and disagreeable phases. Art is immeasurably greater than we are.
Every genius obeys the true principle.
It is because a genius is involuntarily under the law of his art that he is pervaded by its power. Who would wish to play on a stringed instrument already vibrating with the touch of some one else, or even with the last touch we ourselves gave it. So it is with our nerves and muscles. The finer the instrument, the lighter the touch it will vibrate to. With a fine piano or a violin, whether the effect is to be piano or fortissimo, the touch should be only with the amount of force needed to give a clear vibration, and the ease with which a fortissimo effect is thus produced is astonishing.