CHAPTER VIII 
MuSIcC IN THE PLANT WORLD 
“Many voices there are in Nature’s choir, and none but 
were good to hear 
Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and could 
read their meaning clear; 
But we who can feel at Nature’s touch, cannot think as 
yet with her thought; 
And I only know that the sough of the pines with a spell 
of its own is fraught.” 
USIC is a language—a species of soft, 
dreamy speech which makes up for its 
lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty 
and harmony which can best be described as 
divine. Indeed, the ancient Greeks made music 
an all-inclusive term for the higher conceptions 
of life. Dancing, poetry, and even science were 
supposed to be under its sway, while the revolu- 
tion of the heavenly bodies created that “music 
of the spheres” which entertained the gods. 
It would be better for mankind if this senti- 
ment were more popular today. It is a narrow 
notion which confines the idea of musical har- 
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