Seventy-three
bells in chromatic diapason--with their tinkling, ringing, tolling,
knolling peal! Was not that a chime? a chime of chimes? And all these
goblin hammers, like hands and feet of sprites, rising and falling, by
magic, by hidden mechanism.
Of all German cactus blossoms this is the most ethereal. What head
conceived those harmonies, so ghostlike? Every ten minutes, if you lie
wakeful, they wind you up in a net of silver wirework, and swing you
in the clouds; and the next time they swing you higher, and the next
higher, and when the round hour is full the giant bell strikes at the
gate of heaven to bring you home!
But this is dreaming. Fie, fie! Let us come down to pictures, masses,
and common sense. We came down. We entered the room, and sat before
the Descent from the Cross, where the dead body of Jesus seems an
actual reality before you. The waves of the high mass came rolling in,
muffled by intervening walls, columns, corridors, in a low, mysterious
murmur. Then organ, orchestra, and choir, with rising voices urged the
mighty acclaim, till the waves seemed beating down the barriers upon
us. The combined excitement of the chimes, the painting, the music,
was too much.
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