ing heavily to his feet to listen;
in a great, coarse, clumsy, ichthyosaurian way, as the rivers loved sad
Orpheus's wailing tones, stopping in their mighty courses, and the
thick-hided hippopotamus dragged himself up from the unheeded pause of
the waves, dimly thrilled with a vague ecstasy. The confession is sad,
yet only in such beastly fashion come sweetest voices to me,--not in
the fulness of all their vibrations, but sounding dimly through many an
earthly layer. Music I do not so much hear as feel. All the exquisite
nerves that bear to your soul these tidings of heaven in me lie torpid
or dead. No beatitude travels to my heart over that road. But as
sometimes an invalid, unable through mortal sickness to swallow his
needed nutriment, is yet kept alive many days by immersed in a bath of
wine and milk, which somehow, through unwonted courses, penetrates to
the sources of vitality,--so I, though the natural avenues of sweet
sounds have been hermetically sealed, do yet receive the fine flow of
the musical ether. I feel the flood of harmony pouring around me. An
inward, palpable, measured tremulousness of the subtile secret essence
of life attests the presence of some sweet disturbing cause, and, borne
on unseen wings, I mount to loftier heights and diviner airs.

So I was comforted for my waxed ears and Camilla's concert.

There is one other advantage in being possessed with a deaf-and-dumb
devil, which, now that I am on the subject of compensation, I may as
well mention. You are left out of the arena of fierce discussion and
debate. You do not enter upon the lists wherefrom you would be sure to
come off discomfited. Of all reputations, a musical reputation seems
the most shifting and uncertain; and of all rivalries, musical
rivalries are the most prolific of heart-burnings and discomfort. Now,
if I should sing or play, I should wish to sing and play well. But what
is well? Nancie in the village "singing-seats" stands head and
shoulders above the rest, and wears her honors tranquilly, an authority
at all rehearsals and serenades. But Anabella comes up from the town
to spend Thanksgiving, and, without the least mitigation or remorse of
voice, absolutely drowns out poor Nancie, who goes under, giving many
signs. Yet she dies not unavenged, for Harriette sweeps down from the
city, and immediately suspends the victorious Anabella from her
aduncate nose, and carries all before her. Mysterious is the
arrangeme