Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/186

Rh and above all floats the serene beauty of the boy choir — that faltering, vibrating soprano which is of all musical sounds the most touching, the most profoundly affecting to the human heart. As tears begin to trickle down cheeks all unused to such visitants, the melody changes and a woman's voice sings tranquilly some Italian air. Again your senses cheat you, and a pattering rain beats upon the roof; the thunder rattles and you look anxiously at your thin coat. However, the innocuous storm bursts over your head and vanishes in the chords of the Russian national hymn, the American anthem of Yankee Doodle (somewhat apotheosized), or God Save the Queen, for the cunning organist knows to whom he is playing; and after a few more glorious notes the music dies away, and you fold your tents like the Arabs and go back to your hotel.

I can believe anything of the tricks of sound since I heard that organ; and afterwards we timed our daily journeys so that we might arrive in the towns famous for organs at the hour of twilight and hear them play. But we never heard anything so fine again. Perhaps we were under the spell of that rosy first love of travel, whose fruits are so delicious; perhaps (and this is probable) the organist was a man of genius. From Lucerne we drove to Interlaken over the Brünig Pass. This road, after leaving the Lake of Lucerne, became very disagreeable from the dust, and very sad from the effects of the inundations; villages half gone, and that dreadful devastation of sand and gravel covering the once smiling fields which is so hopeless and disheartening.

Yet the latter part of this drive is very picturesque, and the twilight finds you wishing for "more light," that you may see Interlaken and its walnut avenues.