“I fully comprehend your feelings. I have had the same myself, and my interpretation of it is that I cannot accept the music through her organism; or, rather, her atmosphere being between the subject and the auditor, the latter feels only time and sound, not music, not the idea the composer designed to convey. Is not that it?”
“Exactly. After all, there are very few who are organized sufficiently delicate to translate music.”
“True, Florence; how many seek the glorious art, not for its uplifting power, but as a means of display. Let us love it for the good it does for mankind, and use it, not for the end, but as a means, of enjoyment.”
“I play but seldom, Herbert, dearly as I love it.”
“I am not sorry to hear that. I think that greater good is obtained by not being too much in its immediate sphere. Of course greater mechanical skill is acquired by constant practice, but I know by my own experience that when the soul has reached a certain height of culture, the physical nature becomes subordinate to the spiritual, and is controlled by it, because the two natures are then replete with harmony, and the fullness of the one finds expression through the other,—the hand moves in complete obedience to the spirit. Dearly as I love music, I cannot hear or execute it too often. On this I am pleased to see we agree. The air is growing chilly; we will go in and sing one song before we part. What shall it be?”
“The Evening Song to the Virgin,” she answered.
Seating himself at the instrument, he played the prelude soft and low, then their voices mingled in that graceful, gliding song, as only voices can mingle that are united in the harmony of love.
It filled the whole air with sweetness, and Hugh's senses revelled in the holy spell, as he sat alone on the piazza, thinking of the past, his lovely Alice, and the beautiful child which was left to bless his years.
No other song followed; none could. Florence listened to the retreating footsteps of her lover, and then sat in the moonlight to think of her joys.
Howard Deane was weary. Life had not gone pleasantly with him, since we introduced him to the reader. His business, so lucrative and once full of interest, demanding his closest attention, now seemed of no account. Existence had become to him a round of duties mechanically performed. The very air was leaden, and void of life. He needed a revivifying influence, something to invigorate him. His energies languished, and there seemed no one to extend to him a helping hand, as his wife was at deadly variance with those who could have given him what he was so much in want of.