Commonplace Book

''Uncle' sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the whole meaning of a song lies in the words, and that the tune comes of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good...'

from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Book 7, Chapter 7)