e
violins moved up and down together; how accurately the wood-winds came
in with their gentler notes; how regularly the brazen keys of the
trumpets rose and fell, and the long, shining tubes of the trombone
slid out and in. Such varied motions, yet all so limited, so orderly,
so certain and obedient, looked like the sure interplay of the parts
of a wonderful machine.

He watched them as if in a dream, fascinated by their regularity,
their simplicity in detail, their complexity in the mass--watched them
with his eyes, while his heart was carried along with the flood of
music. More and more the impression of a marvellous unity, a
mechanical certainty of action, grew upon that half of his mind which
was occupied with sight, and gave him a singular satisfaction and
comfort.

It was good to be free, for a little while at least, from the
everlasting personal equation, the perplexing interest in human
individuals, the mysterious and disturbing sympathies awakened by
contact with other lives, and to give one's self to the pure enjoyment
of an impersonal work of art, rendered by the greatest of all
instruments--a full orchestra under control of a master.

II

But presently the _Allegro_ came to an end, and with the pause there
came that brief stir in the orchestra, that momentary relaxation of
nerves and muscles, that moving and turning of many heads in different
directions, that swift interchange of looks and smiles and whispered
words between the players, which seemed like the temporary dissolving
of the spell that made them one. And with this general but separated
and uncertain movement a vague thought, an unformulated question,
passed into the mind of the Music-Lover.

How would the leader reassemble the parts of his instrument in a few
seconds, and make them one again, and resume his control over it? How
would he make the pipes and strings and tubes and drums answer to his
touch, though he laid no hand upon them? There must be some strange,
invisible key-board, some secret system of communication between him
and those various contrivances of wood and wire and sheep-skin and
horse-hair and metal (so curiously and grotesquely fashioned, when one
came to consider them) out of which he was to bring melody and
harmony. How should one conceive of this mysterious key-board and its
hidden connections?

How should one comprehend and imagine it? Was it not, after all, the
most wonderful thing about the great instrument on