Music redoubles the ideas which we possess of the faculties of the soul; when listening to it we feel capable of the noblest efforts. Animated by music, we march to the field of death with enthusiasm. This divine art is happily incapable of expressing any base sentiment, any artifice, any falsehood. Calamity itself, in the language of music, is stript of its bitterness; it neither irritates the mind nor rends the heart. Music gently raises that weight which almost constantly oppresses the heart when we are formed for deep and serious affections; that weight which sometimes becomes confounded with the very sense of our existence, so habitual is the pain which it causes. It seems to us in listening to pure and delectable sounds, that we are about to seize the secret of the Creator, and penetrate the mystery of life. No language can express this impression, for language drags along slowly behind primitive impressions, as prose translators behind the footsteps of poets. It is only a look that can give some idea of it; the look of an object you love, long fixed upon you, and penetrating by degrees so deeply into your heart, that you are at length obliged to cast down your eyes to escape a happiness so intense, that, like the splendour of another life, it would consume the mortal being who should presume stedfastly to contemplate it. The admirable exactness of two voices perfectly in harmony produces, in the duets of the great Italian masters, a melting delight which cannot be prolonged without pain. It is a state of pleasure too exquisite for human nature; and the soul then vibrates like an instrument which a too perfect harmony would break. Oswald had obstinately kept at a distance from Corinne during the first part of the concert; but when the duet began, with faintly-sounding voices, accompanied by wind instruments, whose sounds were more pure than the voices themselves, Corinne covered her face with her handkerchief, entirely absorbed in emotion; she wept, but without suffering--she loved, and was undisturbed by any fear. Undoubtedly the image of Oswald was present to her heart; but this image was mingled with the most noble enthusiasm, and a crowd of confused thoughts wandered over her soul: it would have been necessary to limit these thoughts in order to render them distinct. It is said that a prophet traversed seven different regions of heaven in a minute. He who could thus conceive all that an instant might contain, must surely have felt the sublime power of music by the side of the object he loved. Oswald felt this power, and his resentment became gradually appeased. The feelings of Corinne explained and justified everything; he gently approached her, and Corinne heard him breathing by her side in the most enchanting passage of this celestial music. It was too much--the most pathetic tragedy could not have excited in her heart so much sensation as this intimate sentiment of profound emotion which penetrated them