There is something
surpassingly sweet in the music of the flute and violin in the hands
of skillful performers; and yet, to my thinking, it falls far short of
the melody of the human voice. I have listened to some of the most
celebrated singers, and of the most distinguished performers, but it
appears to me now, that I never, on any other occasion, heard the
melody of the human voice, or instrumental music half so enchanting,
as that which came floating over the lake on that calm summer night.
There was a volume and compass about it which can never be reached in
a concert room. It was not loud, but it seemed to fill all the air
with its sweetness. It came over the senses like a pleasant dream, as
it went swelling up to the hills that skirted the lake, floating away
over the water, and dying away in lengthened cadence in the old
forests. Every other sound was hushed; the voices of the night-birds
were stilled; even the frogs along the shore suspended their
bellowing, and all nature seemed listening to the new harmony that
thus fell like enchantment upon the repose of midnight. The music grew
fainter and fainter as it receded, until only an occasional strain,
wavy and dream-like, came creeping like the voice of a spirit over the
water, and then it was lost in the distance. The frogs resumed their
roaring, the night-birds lifted up their voices; the raccoon called to
his fellow, and was answered away off in the forest; the pile-driver
hammered away at his stake, the old owl hooted solemnly from his
perch, and we retired to our tents to talk over the romance of our
serenade, and to dream of Ole Bull and the Swedish Nightingale.
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