Our songs are generally spontaneous effusions, but there are songs with which certain words are permanently associated.

The harp itself is beautiful as a work of sculptural art.  Around its framework most elegant and tasteful ornaments are executed with the minutest perfection—­small birds of variegated plumage perched on graceful foliage of green enamel, with flowers in their natural colours, so executed as closely to resemble nature.  The birds, flowers, and foliage are connected with the chords of the harp, and conceal from view small vases or reservoirs set in the framework of the instrument.  From these with every touch of the chords a beautiful fragrance is exhaled, the force or delicacy of which depends on the more powerful or gentler strains produced from the instruments.

The instant the player strikes the chords, the little birds open their wings, the flowers quiver in gentle action, and then from the vases are thrown off jets of perfume.  The more strongly the chords are touched, the more powerfully does the fragrance play around.

In tender passages the perfume gradually dies away, till it becomes so faint as to be appreciated only by the most delicate organisations.  The result, however, is, that the sense is gratified, the heart touched, and the whole soul elevated.  I have seen the most ardent natures calmed and rendered gentle by the divine strains of this angelic instrument.

It is said that in the angelic spheres flowers breathe music as well as fragrance, and that the sound itself has form, colour, and perfume.  This belief suggested the thought of uniting them in harmonious concert for the gratification of those who had exercised the gifts accorded them by Heaven to a good end.  As they had gained their position by their own merit, it was sought in every way to increase their happiness and their enjoyments.  Nothing that art could produce was thought too good for them.

I loved the world.  The wicked only are impatient and discontented.  I knew that blessings are everywhere about us, though we are expected to exercise our intelligence to make them available; and whilst I inculcated that “intemperance is not enjoyment,” and that “intemperance destroyed the power of enjoyment,” I did not hesitate to tell my people that the world and the blessings everywhere abounding are given us to enjoy, and that, like guests invited to a banquet, we were neither to run riot nor to reject the good things offered us in love.

XLI.

SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

     “The contact of society is necessary for the nurture and
     preservation of the generous feelings implanted in us by the Great
     Spirit.”

In the system I inaugurated, where every man pursued his occupation with enthusiastic delight, because he was engaged in that for which nature and education had fitted him, it became necessary to enjoin recreation and amusement as a duty, particularly in the case of learned men, whose attention was concentrated on one particular subject.