Page:Auld lang syne by Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max).djvu/23

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AULD LANG SYNE

MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS

The man that has no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

Thus wrote Shakespeare; but with all due respect for the immortal bard, he was wrong for once. Did not my dear friend, Arthur Stanley, hate music, and was he not to be trusted? Were his affections dark as Erebus?

True it is, music gives us a new life, and to be without that life is the same loss as to be blind, and not to know the infinite blue of the sky, the varied verdure of the trees, or the silver sparkle of the sea. Music is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It means something, but that something belongs not to this world of sense and logic, but to another world, quite real, though

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