ifested through
language, yet in music alone does it attain its full power and wonderful
complexity. For the _tones_ are not _thoughts_, but _feelings_, and
yield themselves implicitly to the loving hand which would reunite them
and form them into higher unities. These passionate tones, always
seeking for and surging into each other, are plastic pearls on the
string of rhythm, whose proportions may be indefinitely varied at the
will of the fond hand which would wreathe them into strands of
symmetrical beauty; while _words_, the vehicles of antagonistic thought,
frequently refuse to conform to the requisitions of feeling, are often
obstinate and wilful, will not be remodelled, and hard, in their
self-sufficiency, refuse to bear any stamp save that of their known and
fixed value. Like irregular beads of uncut coral, they protrude their
individualities in jagged spikes and unsightly thorns, breaking often
the unity of the whole, and painfully wounding the sense of order.

The true poet overcomes these difficulties. When, in the hands of a
master, they are forced to bend under the onward and impetuous sweep of
the passionate rhythm, compelled to sing the tune of the overpowering
emotions--the chords of the spirit quiver in response. The heart
recognizes the organic law of its own life: _the constant recurrence of
new effort sinking but to recover itself in accurately proportioned
rest, rising again in ever-renewed exertion, to sink again in ever-new
repose_; feeling seems clothing itself with living form, while the
divine attribute, Order, marks for the ear, as it links in mystic Unity,
the flying footsteps of that forever invisible element by which all
mortal being is conditioned and limited: TIME!

'There is no architect
Can build as the Muse can;
She is skilful to select
Materials for her plan.

'She lays her beams in music,
In music every one,
To the cadence of the whirling world
Which dances round the sun.

'That so they shall not be displaced
By lapses or by wars,
But for the love of happy souls
Outlive the newest stars.'
EMERSON.

'OUR ARTICLE.'

'John,' said I to my husband, as he came home from business, and settled
into an armchair for half an hour's rest before dinner, 'I think of
writing an article for THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.'

'Humph!' said my husband.

Now 'humph' bears different interpretations; it may argue assent,