Asked by the girl’s friends if I would myself take a potion similar to that administered to the girl, I offered to drink double the quantity, in the presence of the assembled multitude.  When the cup was close to my lips, and I was about to drink the potion, a woman in the crowd called out that the liquid I held in my hand was innocuous, and very different to the poisonous draught administered to the girl!  So convinced was she of this, that she offered to let her own child drink the potion out of my cup!

This child being, as I believed, afflicted with incipient consumption, I cautioned the mother, explaining to her what would be the consequences of her rashness.  Still she insisted, and adhered to her opinion that if I could drink the potion with impunity, the child could do the same.  I resisted, until at length many in the crowd, who had before been influenced by my words, inferred from my hesitation that what the woman said was really true!  Perceiving that further hesitation on my part would result in great evil, and in many deaths, I allowed the child to drink a quarter of the potion, and I swallowed the rest myself.  My lungs being perfectly sound the potion only stimulated my system, but the effect on the child was the same as it had been on the girl:  it slept, and woke no more.

Having addressed the people for a long time and calmed their anger, I requested them to proceed to the place where the girl’s body lay, to convince themselves of the advanced state of the disease under which she bad suffered.  They were then marshalled by the officers of my palace, and proceeded to the Anatomical Theatre, where they satisfied themselves with their own eyes of the truth of what I had told them.  Public confidence was restored, and many sufferers were saved from premature death.

Effective means were afterwards taken to detect the minute incipient pimples with which the disease was always ushered in, and never afterwards was it allowed to reach serious proportions.  It was destroyed in its earliest germ, and thus much power and vitality and thousands of lives were saved to the State.

XL.

THE HARP.

     “Music....the emanation of the concentrated light of the
     soul....The language of the angels.”

The harp is our principal musical instrument.  We have one that is portable and in form like a lyre; but our great harp is much larger than yours, differently constructed, and far more effective, combining, as it does, in its tones all the delicacy, expression, and oneness of a single executant, with the brilliancy and power of a combined body of performers.

It rests on a ball firmly placed on a massive pedestal, which is easily moved from one place to another by means of small wheels.  The ball on which the harp rests revolves in a socket, so that the instrument can easily be placed in the position the performer desires, and then, by means of a bolt, fixed firmly in its place.  No support from the executant is needed.  The harp does not rest upon him in any way, and he has, at the same time, entire power over every part.