A friend complains that, while most men are like music-boxes, which
you can wind up to play their set of tunes, and then they stop, in our
society the set consists of only two or three tunes at most That is
because no new melodies are added after five-and-twenty at farthest.
It is the topic of jest and amazement with foreigners that what is
called society is 'given up so much into the hands of boys and girls.
Accordingly it wants spirit, variety and depth of tone, and we find
there no historical presences, none of the charms, infinite in
variety, of Cleopatra, no heads of Julius Caesar, overflowing with
meanings, as the sun with light.
Sometimes we hear an educated voice that shows us how these things
might be altered. It has lost the fresh tone of youth, but it has
gained unspeakably in depth, brilliancy, and power of expression. How
exquisite its modulations, so finely shaded, showing that all the
intervals are filled up with little keys of fairy delicacy and in
perfect tune!
Its deeper tones sound the depth of the past; its more thrilling notes
express an awakening to the infinite, and ask a thousand questions of
the spirits that are to unfold our destinies, too far-reaching to be
clothed in words.
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