e most ardent natures calmed and
rendered gentle by the divine strains of this angelic instrument.

It is said that in the angelic spheres flowers breathe music as well as
fragrance, and that the sound itself has form, colour, and perfume. This
belief suggested the thought of uniting them in harmonious concert for
the gratification of those who had exercised the gifts accorded them by
Heaven to a good end. As they had gained their position by their own
merit, it was sought in every way to increase their happiness and their
enjoyments. Nothing that art could produce was thought too good for
them.

I loved the world. The wicked only are impatient and discontented. I
knew that blessings are everywhere about us, though we are expected to
exercise our intelligence to make them available; and whilst I
inculcated that "intemperance is not enjoyment," and that "intemperance
destroyed the power of enjoyment," I did not hesitate to tell my people
that the world and the blessings everywhere abounding are given us to
enjoy, and that, like guests invited to a banquet, we were neither to
run riot nor to reject the good things offered us in love.

XLI.

SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

"The contact of society is necessary for the nurture and
preservation of the generous feelings implanted in us by the Great
Spirit."

In the system I inaugurated, where every man pursued his occupation with
enthusiastic delight, because he was engaged in that for which nature
and education had fitted him, it became necessary to enjoin recreation
and amusement as a duty, particularly in the case of learned men, whose
attention was concentrated on one particular subject.

Before my reign learned men had been sometimes prone to seclude
themselves from the world, while the opulent indulged in amusements to
excess, and had indeed need of laws rather to restrain than to enjoin
indulgence. Now, however, few, except the "humble" classes (for we have
no "poor" in your sense of the word), would have sought after diversions
had not my laws enjoined them as a duty.

As regards learned men, I knew that if one part of the brain was unduly
excited and overworked, the other portions would lie dormant and suffer.
All classes therefore were required to "undergo" amusements, and many
were the precepts to encourage them in the pursuit. I added to these the
force of my own example; for, though occupied incessantly with the cares
of government an