gives activity to life, and you
have no fear of the external obstacles with which it is beset.

Music redoubles the ideas which we possess of the faculties of the soul;
when listening to it we feel capable of the noblest efforts. Animated by
music, we march to the field of death with enthusiasm. This divine art
is happily incapable of expressing any base sentiment, any artifice, any
falsehood. Calamity itself, in the language of music, is stript of its
bitterness; it neither irritates the mind nor rends the heart. Music
gently raises that weight which almost constantly oppresses the heart
when we are formed for deep and serious affections; that weight which
sometimes becomes confounded with the very sense of our existence, so
habitual is the pain which it causes. It seems to us in listening to
pure and delectable sounds, that we are about to seize the secret of
the Creator, and penetrate the mystery of life. No language can express
this impression, for language drags along slowly behind primitive
impressions, as prose translators behind the footsteps of poets. It is
only a look that can give some idea of it; the look of an object you
love, long fixed upon you, and penetrating by degrees so deeply into
your heart, that you are at length obliged to cast down your eyes to
escape a happiness so intense, that, like the splendour of another life,
it would consume the mortal being who should presume stedfastly to
contemplate it.

The admirable exactness of two voices perfectly in harmony produces, in
the duets of the great Italian masters, a melting delight which cannot
be prolonged without pain. It is a state of pleasure too exquisite for
human nature; and the soul then vibrates like an instrument which a too
perfect harmony would break. Oswald had obstinately kept at a distance
from Corinne during the first part of the concert; but when the duet
began, with faintly-sounding voices, accompanied by wind instruments,
whose sounds were more pure than the voices themselves, Corinne covered
her face with her handkerchief, entirely absorbed in emotion; she wept,
but without suffering--she loved, and was undisturbed by any fear.
Undoubtedly the image of Oswald was present to her heart; but this image
was mingled with the most noble enthusiasm, and a crowd of confused
thoughts wandered over her soul: it would have been necessary to limit
these thoughts in order to render them distinct. It is said that a
prophet traversed seven diffe