Eurnaces and Coalpits. 155 



expression to much that is of our highest and best, and 

 suggested a thousandfold more than ever could be 

 expressed. Our benefactor is indeed gone, in a sense 

 material, but his soul lives with us and his voice will still 

 be heard calling us up higher. The man who reveals new 

 beauties in music enriches human life in one of its highest 

 phases, and is to be ranked with the true poet. He who 

 composes great music is the equal of him who writes great 

 words ; Beethoven, Handel, and Wagner are worthy 

 compeers of Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns. 



The eleven miles between Birmingham and Wolver- 

 hampton are nothing but one vast iron-working, coal- 

 mining establishment. There is scarcely a blade of grass 

 of any kind to be seen, and not one real clean pure blade 

 did we observe during the journey. It was Saturday 

 afternoon and the mills were all idle, and the operatives 

 thronged the villages through which we drove. O mills 

 and furnaces and coal-pits and all the rest of you, you 

 may be necessary, but you are no bonnie ! Pittsburghers 

 though many of us were, inured to smoke and dirt, we 

 felt the change very deeply from the hedgerows, the 

 green pastures, the wild flowers and pretty clean cot- 

 tages, and voted the district "horrid." Wolverhamp- 

 ton's steeples soon came into sight, and we who had been 

 there and could conjure up dear, honest, kindly faces 

 waiting to welcome us v/ith warm hearts, were quite re- 

 stored to our usual spirits, notwithstanding dirt and 

 squalor. The sun of a warm welcome from friends gives 



