Charles Auchester, Volume 1 of 2

extraordinarily fresh. I seemed to have lived ages, but yet all struck me in perfect unison as

ricken blind and deaf afterwards, I ought not to have complained,-so far would my happiness, in degree and nature, have outweighed any other I can imagine to have fallen to

before the appointed commencement. Every central speck was a head; the walls were pillared with human being

ances of the entering crowd. The hands of the clock were at the quarter now; we in the chorus wondered that St. Michel had not come. Again they moved, those noiseless hands, and the "tongue" of iron told eleven. We all grew anxious. Still, as all the clocks in the town were not alike, we might be the mistaken ones by ours. It now struck eleven, though, from the last church within our hearing,

charging spleen of the audience began to break in a murmuring, humming, and buzzing, from centre to gallery. The confusion of forms and faces became a perfect dream, it dazzled me dizzy, and I felt quite sick. A hundred fans began to ply in the reserved seats, the gentlemen bent over the ladies; the sound gathered strength and portentous significance from the non-explanatory calm of the orchestra force; but a

ed delay in the commencement of the performance was occasioned by an inevitable and most unexpected accident. Mr. St. Michel, in riding from his ho

undertake the responsible office of conductor pro tempore, the committee would feel-A hurricane of noes tore up the rest of the sentence in contempt, and flung it in the face of the gentleman in the white waistcoat. He still stood. It was well known that not a hand could be spared from the orchestra; but of cours

on seemed increasing in the centre; and it was at that very instant-before poor Merlington had left his apologe

t I had not seen where that gliding form c

with one hand upon the balustrade bowed to the audien

still silence, but we "heard" no "voice." He raised his thin arm: the overture began. The curiosity of the audience had dilated with such intensity that all who had been standing, still stood, and not a creature stirred. The calm was perfect upon which

much depended. He was slight, so slight that he seemed to have grown out of the air. He was young, so young that he

, or blood too rarefied; but the hair betrayed a wondrous strength, clustering in dark curls of excessive

e allegro, did I feel fully conscious of that countenance absol

not how he looked after all was over. The intense impression annihilated itself, as a white, dazzling fire struck from a smith's anvil dies without ashy sign. I have since learned to discover, to adore, every

h accurate force. The perfection with which the conductor was endued must surely have passed electrically into ever

multaneous. The conductor looked over his shoulder, and slightly shook his head. It was enough, and silence reigned as the heavenly sympathy of the recitative trembled from the strings surcharged with fire. Here it

usly, almost imperiously, fixed upon us his eyes. He glanced not a moment at the score, he never turned a leaf, but he urged the time majestically,

e singing at every pore. I seemed pouring out my life instead of my voice; but the feeling I had of being i