to our appreciation of music is also
our appreciation of what is not music," Sarona says; and so faithfully
does this writer prove it, by her attention to minute and usual
circumstances, that one might certainly allow her some exaltation
when touching on one theme,--yet how this exaltation can be called in
question by any who espouse Bettine von Arnim's sublime ravings the
morning after entering Vienna is mysterious. Were the real condition
of these natures--which certainly exist--bared to view, many from their
phlegmatic experience might deem all the nerves to be in a state of
excitation, when in fact they saw only normal and healthy play. It is
true that the power of modulated tones arouses everything most ethereal
and lofty in our composition, and it must therefore be wrong to charge
with extravagance any description of a life in music, which is a life in
the highest, because truly it cannot be extravagant enough, since all
words fail before that of which it discourses,--while it gives you the
sense of the universe and of the eternities, and is to the other arts
what the soul is to the body. And is it not, moreover, the voice of
Nature, the murmur of wind and tree, the thrill of all the dropping
influences of the heavens, the medium of spiritual communication, the
universal language in which all can exchange thought and feeling, and
through which the whole world becomes one nation? Out of the spirit
blossom spirits, Bettine tells us, and we subject ourselves to their
power: "Ah, wonderful mediation of the ineffable, which oppresses the
bosom! Ah, music!" To go further, there is certainly no exaggeration
in Charles Auchester's treatment of his hero; for, reading the
contemporaneous articles of musical journals, you will find them one and
all speaking in even more unrestrained profligacy of praise, recognizing
in the cloud of composers but nine worthy the name of Master, of whom
Mendelssohn was one, and declaring that under his baton the orchestra
was electrified. We all remember the solemnly pathetic and passionate
beauty of Seraphael's burial by night, with the music winding up among
the stars; but did it in reality exceed the actual progress of the dead
Master's ashes from city to city, met in the twilight and the evening by
music, gray-headed Capellmeisters receiving him with singing in the open
midnight, and fresh songs being flung upon his coffin like wreaths with
the sunrise?

There is a wonderful strength exhi