ginary danger, can suffer in one short moment the agony which
should be distributed through a whole lifetime. The magnitude of his
passion could lend to the least thought or presentiment connected with
it the force of a fact and the overwhelming weight of a real calamity.

In order to feel any great or noble passion a man must have an
imagination both great and sensitive in at least one direction. The
execution of a rare melody demands as a prime condition an instrument
of wide compass and delicate construction, and one of even more rich and
varied capabilities is needed to render those grand harmonies which are
woven in the modulation of sonorous chords. A skilful hand may draw a
scale from wooden blocks set upon ropes of straw, but the great musician
must hold the violin, or must feel the keys of the organ under his
fingers and the responsive pedals at his feet, before he can expect to
interpret fittingly the immortal thought of the composer. The strings
must vibrate in perfect tune, the priceless wood must be seasoned and
penetrated with the melodies of years, and scores of years, the latent
music must be already trembling to be free, before the hand that draws
the bow can command the ears and hearts of those who hear. So, too,
love, the chief musician of this world, must find an instrument worthy
of his touch before he can show all his power, and make heart and soul
ring with the lofty strains of a sublime passion. Not every one knows
what love means; few indeed know all that love can mean. There is no
more equality among men than there is likeness between them, and no two
are alike. The many have little, the few have much. To the many is given
the faint perception of higher things, which is either the vestige, or
the promise, of a nobler development, past or yet to come. As through a
veil they see the line of beauty which it is not theirs to trace; as
in a dream they hear the succession of sweet tones which they can
themselves never bring together, though their half-grown instinct feels
a vague satisfaction in the sequence; as from another world, they listen
to the poet's song, wondering, admiring, but powerless over the great
instrument of human speech, from whose 15,000 keys their touch can
draw but the dull, tuneless prose of daily question and answer; as in a
mirage of things unreal, they see the great deeds that are done in
their time for love or hate, for race or country, for ambition and for
vengeance, but th