Prose writers have also been inspired by Music to their highest eloquence. "Music," says Plato, "is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form." "Music," said Luther, "is a fair and glorious gift from God. I would not for the world renounce my humble share in music." "Music," said Halevy, "is an art that God has given us, in which the voices of all nations may unite their prayers in one harmonious rhythm." Or Carlyle, "Music is a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into it." Let me also quote Helmholtz, one of the profoundest exponents of modern science. "Just as in the rolling ocean, this movement, rhythmically repeated, and yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and hurries us along. But whereas in the sea blind physical forces alone are at work, and hence the final impression on the spectator's mind is nothing but solitude--in a musical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own emotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently stirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression of passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into the hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of which God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be the heralds."