ike this, which sweeps him with all around into the very
course of changing fates. In the confluence of dim hopes and passions
which rise above the harmonies like smoke-wreaths riding the red flame,
the soul glows interfluous with other souls and is elated with the
inspiration of their presence. He bears arms exulting who never had
comrades till now; his will is absorbed in confederate joy and human
force unanimous. In this abandonment of the whole being, the diffident
know their fellows near, and in the ecstasy of shared emotion learn the
full measure of their humanity. Philosophers in all ages have known and
taught the power of music in compelling ten thousand to the love of one,
and so ennobling an infinite multitude in the glow of a common emotion.
Sound was the first instinctive language, one for man and winds and
waters; and music, which is the development of this primeval converse,
leaving to grammars the expression of cold and abstract thought, has
gathered about her in her mountain caverns the echoes of all sighs sad
or passionate, of all inarticulate cries born of aspiration or desire,
and there blended them into eternal harmonies which at her word flow
forth and join the hearts of men.

Indeed, that swift responsiveness of feeling which music thus awakes is
a gift beyond gems of Golconda; not youth's swift effusion cheaply given
and soon forgotten, but the vibration of a heart stirred in sympathy
with some profound note of life, as the dyed pane stirs and quivers
when the organ gives forth its deepest tones. Sentiment is a draught of
old wine passing into the veins and enriching the blood, until in the
generous glow all the privations and the stints of loneliness are
forgotten. Pure emotion is like righteous anger, which may be lawfully
indulged if the sun go not down upon it; and as he who shrinks from all
fire of wrath lives but a vaporous life, so he who will never be moved
is proud of a poor crustacean strength, like the limpet, winning
darkness in exchange for dull stability. As for me, in the propitious
hour when the heart longs for expansion, I give it honourable licence,
and quicken its unfolding by spells of magical words. At such times I
invoke the aid of passionate souls, not shrinking even from the vain,
provided that they loved greatly and give great expression to their
humanity. Such is that wild lover of George Sand whose _Souvenir_, for
all its rhetoric, charms like an incantation. The ancients