Music blesses the innocent bride with the first chant of forever _united_, and consequently holy love. It hallows at the baptismal font the introduction of the infant into the mystical _oneness_ of the children of Christ. Even at the grave it softens human sorrow by its heavenly whisperings of _eternal union_ in the bosom of Infinite love. France is ever ready to receive Italian, Sclavonic, and German artists with characteristic and appreciative enthusiasm; and America applauds with _naïve_ rapture that skill, as yet, alas! foreign to her native soil. 'I pant for the music which is divine, My heart in its thirst is a dying flower; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine; Loosen the notes in a silver shower; Like an herbless plain, for the gentle rain, I gasp, I faint, till they wake again. 'Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound-- More--oh, more--I am thirsting yet! It loosens the serpent which care has bound Upon my heart to stifle it; The dissolving strain, in every vein, Passes into my heart and brain.' SHELLEY. Artists and litterateurs are the true representatives of the countries in which they live; because they alone reveal to us the secret throbbings of the great national heart; and the warm and sympathetic feelings which they excite in foreign climes, are _golden links_ drawing more closely the ties of mutual understanding and affection, welding them together in that generous _reciprocal_ esteem and comprehension, which is destined to _unite_ all climes and tongues. 'A touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'