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FLORENTINE NIGHTS.

nobler limbs, the black hair flowed in shining locks on his shoulders, and as he stood there, firm and confidently, like the sublime statue of a god, and played the violin, it seemed as if all creation obeyed his tones. He was the man-planet round whom the universe moved, ringing with measured joy and in happy rhythm. Were those great lights which swept so calmly gleaming round him stars of heaven? Were those sweet-sounding harmonies which were caused by their motion, the music of the spheres, of which poets and seers have told so much that is bewildering and strange? Sometimes when with an effort I looked forth and far into the dim distance, I seemed to see white waving garments, in which colossal pilgrims wandered in disguise, with staves in their hands; and, strange! the gold heads of their staves were those same great lights which I had taken for stars. These pilgrims went in a vast procession around the great player; the heads of their staves flashed reflected light from the tones of his violin; and the chorals which rang from their lips, and which I had taken for the noise of the spheres, were really only the rebounding echoes of his violin. An ineffable, nameless passion dwelt in these sounds, which often quivered almost inaudibly, like mysterious whispering on water, then again swelled up sweetly-terrible, like the tones of hunters' horns