sion of national life and feeling.

The Class went to hear one of Germany's greatest singers. She sang an
heroic selection, and was recalled. Her first words on the recall
hushed the audience: it was a ballad of the four stages of life. It
began with an incident of a child dreaming under a rosebush:--

"Sweetly it sleeps and on dream wings flies
To play with the angels in Paradise,
And the years glide by."

as an English translation gives it.

In the last stanza, the child having passed through the stages of
life, was represented as again sleeping under a rosebush. The withered
leaves fall upon his grave.

"Withered and dead they fall to the ground,
And silently cover a new-made mound,
And the years glide by."

These last lines were rendered so softly, yet distinctly, that they
seemed like tremulous sounds in the air. The singer's face hardly
appeared to move; every listener was like a statue. The silence was
almost painful and impressive. One could but feel this was indeed art,
and not a pretentious affectation of it.

[Illustration: AN OLD GERMAN TOWN.]

The reign of the organ as the monarch of musical instruments began
with Charlemagne, and nearly all of the towns on the Rhine have
historic organs. Many of the organ pieces are local compositions
and imitative. On the great organs at Basle and Frieburg the
imitation of storms is sometimes produced.

None of these storm-pieces, however, equal that which is daily played
in summer on the organ of Lucerne. This organ tempest more greatly
excited the Class than any music that they heard during their
journeys; and Master Beal made a record of it in verse, which we give
at the close of the chapter.

The children of Germany learn to read music at the same age that
they learn to read books. Music is a part of their primary
school--Kindergarten--education. The poorest children are taught to
sing.

[Illustration: THE RHINEFELS.]

The consequence is that the Germans are a nation of singers. The organ
is a power in the church, the military band at the festival, and the
ballad in the concert-room and the home.

These ballad-loving people are familiar with the best music. To them
music is a language. Says Mayhew, in his elaborate work on the Rhine,
in speaking of the free education in music in Germany: "To tickle the
gustatory nerves with either dainty food or drink costs some money;
but to be able to reproduce the harmonious co