is energy, his long idleness reacted on a sudden in
prodigious strength of intellect, it stirred like a giant refreshed.
Long time ago he had dreamed--he had entirely forgotten it was a fact
that he had been told--that, if the whole force of that organ were put
out, the result would be tremendous. He had also _dreamed_--that is,
been assured--that there was a law made to the purpose that the whole
force of the organ was never to be employed. The law had never been
broken, except once;--but there his memories waxed dim and indistinct;
he was at the mercy of his own volition, which resolved on recalling
nothing that could dissuade him from his rash and forbidden longing.
Unknown to himself, perhaps the failure of his design to escape, of
which the princess had assured him, drove him to the crisis of a more
desperate endeavor. But, whether it was so or not, he was unconscious of
it,--so far innocent. He sat down, believing himself alone.... 'Softly,
softly,' mocked his whisper--to himself,--and he touched alone the
whispering reeds, Adelaida held her breath, and chid the beating of her
heart, which seemed louder than the mellow pulse that throbbed in tune
above. The symphony that followed fell like a mighty universal
hush, through which the clarionet-stop chanted, unuttered but
articulate,--'Give to us peace.' Then the hush dissolved into a sea
of sighs: 'Peace, peace!' they yearned, and the mild deep diapason
muttered, 'Peace.' She, the one listener, felt, as it were, her brain
fill soft with tears, her eyes rained them, and her heart, whose pulses
had dropped as calm as dew, echoed the peaceful longing of the whole
heart of humanity. A longing as peaceful in its expression as the peace
it longed for; the creation's travail seemed spent to the edge of joy.

"Suddenly, as light swept chaos, this peaceful fancy was disrupted,--her
heart ravished from its rest, its calm torn from it. Down went the pedal
which forced the whole first organ out at once, and as if shouted by
hosts of men and by myriad angels echoed, pealed the great Hosanna. The
mighty rapture of the princess won her instantly from regret; no peace
could be so glorious as that praise; and vast as was the volume
of sound, the hands that invoked it had it so completely under
control--voluntary control as yet--that it did not swamp her sense; her
spirit floated on the wide stream with harmonious waves towards the
measureless immensity of music at its source. To reac