have vanquished the heathen?

"The secret of this music and its refreshing effect on the soul is, I
believe, that of a very few works of human genius: it carries us for
the moment into the infinite; we feel it within us; we see it, in
those melodies as boundless as the hymns sung round the throne of God.
Rossini's genius carries us up to prodigious heights, whence we look
down on a promised land, and our eyes, charmed by heavenly light, gaze
into limitless space. Elcia's last strain, having almost recovered from
her grief, brings a feeling of earth-born passions into this hymn of
thanksgiving. This, again, is a touch of genius.

"Ay, sing!" exclaimed the Duchess, as she listened to the last stanza
with the same gloomy enthusiasm as the singers threw into it. "Sing! You
are free!"

The words were spoken in a voice that startled the physician. To
divert Massimilla from her bitter reflections, while the excitement
of recalling la Tinti was at its height, he engaged her in one of the
arguments in which the French excel.

"Madame," said he, "in explaining this grand work--which I shall come to
hear again to-morrow with a fuller comprehension, thanks to you, of its
structure and its effect--you have frequently spoken of the color of the
music, and of the ideas it depicts; now I, as an analyst, a materialist,
must confess that I have always rebelled against the affectation of
certain enthusiasts, who try to make us believe that music paints with
tones. Would it not be the same thing if Raphael's admirers spoke of his
singing with colors?"

"In the language of musicians," replied the Duchess, "_painting_ is
arousing certain associations in our souls, or certain images in our
brain; and these memories and images have a color of their own; they are
sad or cheerful. You are battling for a word, that is all. According
to Capraja, each instrument has its task, its mission, and appeals to
certain feelings in our souls. Does a pattern in gold on a blue ground
produce the same sensations in you as a red pattern on black or green?
In these, as in music, there are no figures, no expression of
feeling; they are purely artistic, and yet no one looks at them with
indifference. Has not the oboe the peculiar tone that we associate
with the open country, in common with most wind instruments? The brass
suggests martial ideas, and rouses us to vehement or even somewhat
furious feelings. The strings, for which the material is derived from
t