"His theory,--oh, it was in this way! Strings first, of course, violet, indigo, blue,--violin, violoncello, double-bass,--upon these you repose; the vault is quite perfect. Green, the many-sounded kinds of wood, spring-hued flutes, deeper, yet softer, clarinetti, bassoons the darkest tone, not to be surpassed in its shade,--another vault. The brass, of course, is yellow; and if the horns suggest the paler dazzle, the trumpets take the golden orange, and the red is left for the trombones,--vivid, or dun and dusk."[3] "Oh, my goodness! I don't wonder he said it was a dream!" "It certainly would be dangerous to think of it in any other light!" "And you a German!" I cried. "Did you think I meant it?" "You would mean it," he retorted, "if you knew what lip-distorting and ear-distracting work it is practising this same trombone." "But what is your reason, then, for choosing it, when you might choose _mine_?" "Do you not know that Seraphael has written as no one else for the trombone? And he was heard to sigh, and to say, 'I shall never find any one to play these passages!'" "Oh, Delemann! and that was the reason you took it up? How I love you for it!" FOOTNOTES: [1] Wretch. [2] Brotherhood. [3] The theory of the correspondence of tones and colors is an old one. Gardner, in his "Music of Nature," traces it in the following manner, which will be interesting as contrasted with the above:-- WIND INSTRUMENTS. Trombone--deep red. Trumpet--scarlet. Clarinet--orange. Oboe--yellow. Bassoon--deep yellow. Flute--sky blue. Diapason--deeper blue. Double diapason--purple. Horn--violet. STRINGED INSTRUMENTS. Violin--pink. Viola--rose. Violoncello--red. Double-bass--crimson. Laura Bridgman, the blind and deaf mute, it will be remembered, likened the tone of the trumpet to scarlet. CHAPTER II. All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal meaning; how seldom _this_ escapes in language worthy, while _that_ tells best in words. I was a good deal exhausted for several days after I entered the school, and saw very little except my own stuntedness and deficiency in the mirror of contemplation. For Anastase took me to himself awfully the first morning, all alone; examined me, tortured me, made me blush and hesitate and groan; bade me be humble and industrious; told me I was not so forward as I might be; drenched me with medicinal advices that lowered my mental system; and, finally, left me in possession of a minikin edition of what I had conceived myself the day before, but which he deprived me of at present, if not annihilated forever. It was doubtless a very good thing to go back to the beginning, if he intended to re-create me; but it happened that such transmutation could not take place twice, and it had already occurred once. Still, I was absolved from obvious discomfiture to the regenerator by my silent adaptations to his behavior.