Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/93



is music, delicious music, in the air; it is not the blare of trumpets and trombones, nor the beating of war-like drums that I hear, but a soft, sweet kind of music, which whispers of temporary, if not eternal, peace. It is such music as we might imagine was played by Ariel among the shipwrecked mariners of The Tempest; it is now here, now there, now under my pillow, now rolling beneath the roof, now rising into loud strains, and now sinking into lower and gentler tones. I was about to open my eyes, perhaps in a world more fair and dazzling than that in which I was born; possibly in the kingdom of darkness where the glorious light of heaven and the sweet rays of the twinkling stars never shine. For a long time I dared not open them. What shall I do, I asked myself with apprehension, if they open upon scenes of happiness and love; or what if, on the contrary, I find myself still in the lost and ruined world, or even somewhere worse than that?

The music continued; a strange kind of music it was, like nothing that I had ever heard before. There was no harshness or grating in the strains: and yet the harmony which I had so often heard in our churches, homes, and concert-halls seemed to be lacking. It is impossible to