"I beg your pardon, Mr. Santonio; the grand point was making all go together, such as it was, so that no one realized a discrepancy anywhere. Interruptions would not only have been useless, they would have been ignorant; but in this person's strange intimacy with the exigencies of a somewhat unsteady orchestra, his consummate triumph was achieved." "Well, I believe he will be found some time hence, in some out-of-the-way hole, that shall deprive you all of enchantment." "I do believe he is my wizard of Rothseneld." "You are very credulous if you can so believe." And they said much more. But what shocked me, had been the denuding treatment of my all-glorious festival,--my romance of perfectibility, my ideal world. How they talked--for I cannot remember the phrases they strung into cold chains, at much greater length than I record--of what had been for me as heaven outspread above in mystery and beauty, and as a heaven-imaging deep beneath, beyond my fathom, yet whereon I had exulted as on the infinite unknown! they making it instead a reality not itself all lovely,--a revelation not itself complete. I had not been mixed in the musical world; for there is such a world as is not heaven, but earth, in the realm of tone, and tone-artists must pass, as it were, through it. How few receive not from it some touch, some taint of its clinging presence! How few, indeed, infuse into it--while in it they are necessitated to linger--the spirit of their heavenly home! Dimly, of a truth, had the life of music been then opened to my ken; but it seemed at that moment again enclosed, and I fell back into the first darkness. It was so sad to me to feel thus, that I could not for an instant recover my faith in myself. I fancied myself too insignificantly affected, and would, if I could, have joined in the anti-spiritual prate of Miss Lawrence and Santonio. Let me do them no injustice; they were both musicians, but I was not old enough to appreciate their actual enthusiasm, as it were by mutual consent a sealed subject between them. I am almost tempted, after all, to say that it is best not to tamper with our finest feelings,--best to keep silence; but let me beware,--it is while we muse, the fire kindles, and we are then to speak with our tongues. Let _them_ be touched too, though, with the inward fire, or we have no right to speak. CHAPTER XXI. Oh, shame upon me, thus to ramble, when I should be restoring merely!