SWEETNESS OF THE HUMAN VOICE. 293 



they started across the water, they treated us to a concert 

 to which it was pleasant to listen. There is something 

 surpassingly sweet in the music of the flute and violin in 

 the hands of skillful performers ; and yet, to my thinking, 

 it falls far short of the melody of the human voice. I 

 have listened to some of the most celebrated singers, and 

 of the most distinguished performers, but it appears to 

 me now, that I never, on any other occasion, heard the 

 melody of the human voice, or instrumental music half so 

 enchanting, as that which came floating over the lake on 

 that calm summer night. There was a volume and compass 

 about it which can never be reached in a concert room. 

 It was not loud, but it seemed to fill all the air with its 

 sweetness. It came over the senses like a pleasant dream, 

 as it went swelling up to the hills that skirted the lake, 

 floating away over the water, and dying away in length- 

 ened cadence in the old forests. Every other sound was 

 hushed ; the voices of the night-birds were stilled ; even 

 the frogs along the shore suspended their bellowing, and 

 all nature seemed listening to the new harmony that thus 

 fell like enchantment upon the repose of midnight. The 

 music grew fainter and fainter as it receded, until only 

 an occasional strain, wavy and dream-like, came creeping 

 like the voice of a spirit over the water, and then it was 

 lost in the distance. The frogs resumed their roaring, 

 the night-birds lifted up their voices ; the raccoon called 

 to his fellow, and was answered away off in the forest ; 

 the pile-driver hammered away at his stake, the old owl 



