But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps
within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and
produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of
the sounds or motions thus excited to the impressions which excite
them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions
of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even
as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre.
A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and
motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact
relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions
which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression;
and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so
the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration
of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation
to the objects which delight a child, these expressions are what poetry
is to higher objects.
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