Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/100

 roaring of the storm and the raging of the sea. Sometimes the echoes seemed to be silent for a moment and a melody or a succession of harmonies would ring clear through the immense space; or a soprano solo would detach itself from the magic confusion and float upon the air like an angel's voice. The effect was indescribably touching, and I remember how, not seldom, I stood leaning against one of the gigantic columns and something like devout tremors passed over me, and my eyes filled with tears. This, I thought, must be what I had heard called the “Music of the Spheres,” or the “Concert of the Children of Heaven,” as I had seen depicted on the old canvases of the Walraff Museum.

Sunday noon afforded still another treat. A part of the garrison paraded on the Neumarkt, and its excellent band played martial strains for the changing guard, afterwards entertaining the public with a well-selected programme. Their repertoire being large, these military concerts helped not a little to increase my musical knowledge.

The talks with my much traveled friend, Professor Pütz, together with books on architecture lent by him, excited in me an interest in ancient and mediæval architecture, and many happy hours were spent in studying the middle-age structures of religious and secular character of which Cologne is justly proud. My artistic studies were therefore by no means inconsiderable, although I had to confine myself to such as were accessible without cost.

Free afternoons were usually passed with my friends. Besides reading aloud, we philosophised together on everything above and below with that gravity characteristic of young, ardent and somewhat precocious persons. Sometimes I went to my uncle's house at Lind, a half-hour's walk from Cologne, to visit two cousins of about my own age. They were