crisped not, but on and above which it breathed
like the track of a sunbeam aslant from a parted cloud. The slightest
possible retardation at its close brought us to the refrain of the
simple adagio, interrupted again by a rush of violoncello-notes, rapid
and low, like some sudden under-current striving to burst through the
frozen sweetness. Then spread wide the subject, as plains upon plains of
_water-land_; though the time was gradually increased. Amplifications of
the same harmonies introduced a fresh accession of violoncelli and oboi
contrasted artfully in syncopation, till at length the strides of the
accelerando gave a glittering precipitation to the entrance of the
second and longest movement.

"Then Anastase turned upon me, and with the first bar we fell into a
tumultuous presto. Far beyond all power to analyze as it was just then,
the complete idea embraced me as instantaneously as had the picturesque
chillness of the first. I have called it tumultuous,--but merely in
respect of rhythm:--the harmonies were as clear and evolved as the
modulation itself was sharp, keen, and unapproachable. Through every bar
reigned that vividly enunciated ideal, whose expression pertains to
the one will alone in any age,--the ideal, that, binding together in
suggestive imagery every form of beauty, symbolizes and represents
something beyond them all.

"Here over the surge-like, but fast-bound motivo--only like those tost
ice-waves, dead still in their heaped-up crests--were certain swelling
crescendos of a second subject, so unutterably if vaguely sweet, that
the souls of all deep blue Alp-flowers, the clarity of all high blue
skies, had surely passed into them, and was passing from them again....

"It was not until the very submerging climax that the playing of
Anastase was recalled to me. Then, amidst long ringing notes of the wild
horns, and intermittent sighs of the milder wood, swept from the violins
a torrent of coruscant arpeggi, and above them all I heard his tone,
keen but solvent, as his bow seemed to divide the very strings with
fire, and I felt as if some spark had fallen upon my fingers to kindle
mine. As soon as it was over, I looked up and laughed in his face with
sheer pleasure."

Nothing of the kind was ever half so delightful, if one excepts Mr.
Dwight's translation of a _Gondel-lied_. As literal description it is
wondrous, but as imagination it equals the music itself. Let us pause
for an instant here and r