A few
years later such an encounter might have spoiled his dinner: I have
to record no such evil result of the adventure.
With Miss St. John, music was the highest form of human expression,
as must often be the case with those whose feeling is much in
advance of their thought, and to whom, therefore, may be called
mental sensation is the highest known condition. Music to such is
poetry in solution, and generates that infinite atmosphere, common
to both musician and poet, which the latter fills with shining
worlds.--But if my reader wishes to follow out for himself the idea
herein suggested, he must be careful to make no confusion between
those who feel musically or think poetically, and the musician or
the poet. One who can only play the music of others, however
exquisitely, is not a musician, any more than one who can read verse
to the satisfaction, or even expound it to the enlightenment of the
poet himself, is therefore a poet.--When Miss St. John would worship
God, it was in music that she found the chariot of fire in which to
ascend heavenward. Hence music was the divine thing in the world
for her; and to find any one loving music humbly and faithfully was
to find a brother or sister believer. But she had been so often
disappointed in her expectations from those she took to be such,
that of late she had become less sanguine. Still there was
something about this boy that roused once more her musical hopes;
and, however she may have restrained herself from the full
indulgence of them, certain it is that the next day, when she saw
Robert pass, this time leisurely, along the top of the garden, she
put on her bonnet and shawl, and, allowing him time to reach his
den, followed him, in the hope of finding out whether or not he
could play.
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