Charles Darwin on Music

[Music] arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not conceived the possibility, and do not know the meaning; or, as Richter says, tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see.

— The Descent of Man

I can remember, my first year at Cambridge,
going twice to London to hear them sing The Messiah.
A youthful taste; I have not heard or spoken
the words, even, for more than thirty years.
But at that time their sound was quite enough,
if I would think of them in the frosty night
as I was walking home from the Fitzwilliam,
to make my backbone shiver with commotion
and set me whistling to keep back my tears.