The Music of the Spheres 89 



harmony, though in diverse modulations. "There 

 are," Plato says, "the three daughters of Necessity, 

 Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, singing to the har- 

 mony of the sirens; Lachesis sings of the past [she 

 is my girl], Clotho of the present, and Atropos of 

 the future." There you have it! Plato against 

 Koppernicht!] 



Now, I hope I have said enough to convince all 

 true traditionalists of the truth that the celestial 

 spheres are musical. The only reason why our 

 modern philosophers do not hear the music is be- 

 cause they are making an eternal racket themselves. 

 It was past midnight as I sat by the great crum- 

 bling coals of the camp-fire and listened. The con- 

 ditions, after all the advantages, were not wholly 

 favorable. There was still much to take my atten- 

 tion. The glowing coals would crumble and fall, 

 and a new flame flash up. The aerolite fell and set 

 me to thinking about the meteors. A whippoorwill 

 started up so far away that I set myself to distin- 

 guish his articulations. Then an owl, one of the 

 great northern screamers, and with his first note I 

 was sure he was a wolf, as almost anybody would 

 be, and I rose to my feet to listen to the plunge of 

 a pursued deer in the lake, thinking he would swim 

 across to the island ; and then those noisy rascals, 

 the loons. They were calling to each other across 

 miles of forest. I heard one on Deer Lake, five 

 miles away, and that reminded me of the day I took 

 my young New York friends over there hunting. 



