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arrows with flowers, and orange buds are the bridal crown with us, a nation of yesterday. Flowers garlanded the Grecian altar, and they hang in votive wreaths before the Christian shrine.

All these are appropriate uses. Flowers should deck the brow of the youthful bride, for they are in themselves a lovely type of marriage. They should twine round the tomb, for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection. They should festoon the altar, for their fragrance and their beauty ascend in perpetual worship, before the Most High.

LETTER XXVII.

September 8, 1842.

It is curious to observe by what laws, ideas are associated; how, from the tiniest seed of thought, rises the umbrageous tree, with moss about its foot, blossoms on its head, and birds among its branches. Reading my last letter, concerning the spiral series of the universe, some busy little spirit suggested that there should, somewhere in creation, be a flower that made music. But I said, do they not all make melody? The Persians write their music in colours; and perchance in the arrangement of flowers, angels may perceive songs and anthems. The close relationship between light and music has been more or less dimly perceived by the human mind everywhere. The Persian, when he gave to each note a colour, probably embodied a greater mystery than he understood. The same undefined perception makes us talk of the harmony of colours, and the tone of a picture; it led the blind man to say that his idea of red was like the sound of a trumpet; and it taught Festus to speak of a rainbow of sweet sounds.' John S. Dwight was inspired with the same idea, when he eloquently described music as 'a

prophecy of what life is to be; the rainbow of promise, translated out of seeing into hearing.'

But I must not trust myself to trace the beautiful analogy between light and music. As I muse upon it, it is like an opening between clouds, so transparent, and so deep, deep, that it seems as if one could see through it beyond the farthest star-if one could but gaze long and earnestly enough.

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Every flower writes music on the air;' and every tree that grows enshrines a tone within its heart. Do you doubt it? Try the willow and the oak, the elm and the poplar, and see whether each has not its own peculiar sound, waiting only for the master's hand to make them discourse sweet music. One of the most remarkable instruments ever invented gives proof of this. M. Guzikow was a Polish Jew; a shepherd in the service of a nobleman. From earliest childhood, music seemed to pervade his whole being. As he tended his flocks in the loneliness of the fields, he was for ever fashioning flutes and reeds from the trees that grew around him. He soon observed that the tone of the flute varied according to the wood he used; by degrees he came to know every tree by its sound; and the forests stood round him a silent oratorio. The skill with which he played on his rustic flutes attracted attention. The nobility invited him to their houses, and he became a favourite of fortune. Men never grew weary of hearing him. But soon it was perceived that he was pouring forth the fountains of his life in song. Physicians said he must abjure the flute, or die. It was a dreadful sacrifice; for music to him was life. old familiarity with tones of the forest came to his aid. He took four round sticks of wood, and bound them closely together with bands of straw; across these he arranged numerous pieces of round, smooth wood, of different kinds. They were arranged irreguiarly to the eye; though harmoniously to the ear;

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for some jutted beyond the straw-bound foundation at one end, and some at the other; in and out, in apparent confusion. The whole was lashed together with twine, as men would fasten a raft. This was laid on a common table, and struck with two small ebony sticks. Rude as the instrument appeared, Guzikow brought from it such rich and liquid melody, that it seemed to take the heart of man on its wings, and bear it aloft to the throne of God. They who have heard it, describe it as far exceeding even the miraculous warblings of Paganini's violin. The emperor of Austria heard it, and forthwith took the Polish peasant into his own especial service. In some of the large cities, he now and then gave a concert, by royal permission; and on such an occasion he was heard by a friend of mine at Hamburg.

The countenance of the musician was very pale and haggard, and his large dark eyes wildly expressive. He covered his head, according to the custom of the Jews; but the small cap of black velvet was not to be distinguished in colour from the jet black hair that fell from under it, and flowed over his shoulders in glossy, natural ringlets. He wore the costume of his people, an ample robe, that fell about. him in graceful folds. From head to foot all was black, as his own hair and eyes, relieved only by the burning brilliancy of a diamond on his breast. The butterflies of fashion were of course attracted by the unusual and poetic beauty of his appearance; and ringlets a la Guzikow were the order of the day.

Before this singularly gifted being stood a common wooden table, on which reposed his rude-looking in-. vention. He touched it with the ebony sticks. At first you heard a sound as of wood; the orchestra rose higher and higher, till it drowned its voice; then gradually subsiding, the wonderful instrument rose above other sounds, clear-warbling, like a nightingale; the orchestra rose higher, like the coming of the breeze-but above them all, swelled the sweet

tones of the magic instrument, rich, liquid, and strong, like a sky-lark piercing the heavens! They who heard it listened in delighted wonder, that the trees could be made to speak thus under the touch of genius.

There is something pleasant to my imagination in the fact that every tree has its own peculiar note, and is a performer in the great concert of the universe, which for ever rises before the throne of Jehovah. But when the idea is applied to man, it is painful in the extreme. The emperor of Russia is said to have an imperial band, in which each man is doomed all his life long to sound one note, that he may acquire the greatest possible perfection. The effect of the whole is said to be admirable; but nothing would tempt me to hear this human musical machine. A tree is a unit in creation; though, like everything else, it stands in relation to all things. But every human soul represents the universe. There is horrible profanation in compelling a living spirit to utter but one note. Theological sects strive to do this continually; for they are sects because they magnify some one attribute of deity, or see but one aspect of the divine government. To me, their fragmentary echoes are most discordant; but doubtless the angels listen to them as a whole, and perhaps they hear a pleasant chorus.

Music, whether I listen to it, or try to analyse it, ever fills me with thoughts which I cannot express --because I cannot sing; for nothing but music_can express the emotions to which it gives birth. Language, even the richest flow of metaphor, is too poor to do it. That the universe moves to music, I have no doubt; and could I but penetrate this mystery, where the finite passes into the infinite, I should surely know how the world was created. Pythagoras supposed that the heavenly bodies, in their motion, produced music inaudible to mortal ears. These mo

tions he believed conformed to certain fixed laws,

bob-o'-link poured forth his soul in song; the mocking-bird hopped nearer, and listened most intently. Again he tried; but it was all in vain. The bob-o'link, as if conscious that none could imitate his Godgiven tune, sent forth a clearer, stronger, richer strain than ever. The mocking-bird evidently felt that his reputation was at stake. He warbled all kinds of notes in quick succession. You would have thought the house was surrounded by robins, sparrows, whippowills, black-birds, and linnets. Having shown off his accomplishments, he again tried his powers on the altogether inimitable trill. The effort he made was prodigious; but it was mere talent trying to copy genius. He couldn't do it. He stopped, gasping, in the midst of the prolonged melody, and flew away abruptly, in evident vexation.

Music, like every thing else, is now passing from the few to the many. The art of printing has laid before the multitude the written wisdom of ages, once locked up in the elaborate manuscripts of the cloister. Engraving and daguerreotype spread the productions of the pencil before the whole people. Music is taught in our common schools, and the cheap accordion brings its delights to the humblest élass of citizens. All these things are full of prophecy. Slowly, slowly, to the measured sound of the spirit's music, there goes round the world the golden band of brotherhood; slowly, slowly, the earth comes to its place, and makes a chord with heaven.

Sing on, thou true-hearted, and be not discouraged! If a harp be in perfect tune, and a flute, or other instrument of music be near it, and in perfect tune also, thou canst not play on one without wakening an answer from the other. Behold, thou shalt hear its sweet echo in the air, as if played on by the invisible. Even so shall other spirits vibrate to the harmony of thine. Utter what God giveth thee to say. In the sunny West Indies, in gay and graceful Paris, in frozen Iceland, and the deep still

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