If so, my friend, you are at liberty to retire to any place of
entertainment which your better judgment may suggest; but I will lay
aside my pen to walk among the flowers; and see if some of those silent,
though eloquent preachers, will not furnish the mind with some new idea,
which may serve as a foundation for another discourse.





MUSIC OF THE MIND.

What is music of the mind? Is it the soft harmonious strains of the
little minstrel which often steals into some secret nook within the
heart, and there tunes her silent harp to notes of sweetest melody?
Though we never hear her melting lays, yet persons in every station,
from the king upon his throne to the beggar by the wayside, and the rude
untutored savage roaming through his native forest, often experience
that exquisite pleasure produced by her magic spell.

We are continually surrounded by scenes calculated to produce this
music. The variegated scenery of different landscapes; the changing
seasons of the year; Spring with her balmy air, soft refreshing showers,
green fields, fragrant flowers, and merry cheerful birds; Summer, with
her sultry days, her cool inviting shades, her waving fields, and
delicious fruits; and Autumn, with his rich golden harvest, bright
pensive dreamy days, and clear moonlight evenings, have power to rouse
the minstrel from her slumbers; and even rude old Winter, clothed in
clouds and storms and drifting snows, can with his icy fingers sweep her
silent harp strings and wake their wildest melody.