was nothing he could not do in time. Music answered--trombone,
clarionet, horn, bassoon, hautboy, flute, 'cello answered. Volume and
tempo were mere lever matters. On the rolls themselves were
suggestions. Reaching this point, his exaltation knew no bounds. He
looked upon the great array of rolls--symphonies, sonatas, concertos,
fantasies, rhapsodies, overtures, prayers, requiems, meditations,
minuets--and something of that rising power of gratitude overcame him,
as only once before in his life--when he had realized that the Bible
was all _words_, and they were for him. From the first studious
marvellings, Bedient's mind lifted to adoring gratefulness in which he
could have kissed the hands of the toilers who had made this instrument
answer their dreams. Then, he fell deeply into misgiving. It seemed
almost a sacrilege for him to take music so cheaply; that he had not
earned such joy. But he could praise them in his heart, and he did with
every sound.

The orchestrelle unfolded to a spirit like this. Doubtless his early
renderings of random choice were weird, but more and more as he went
on, the great living things righted themselves in his consciousness,
for he had ear and soul and love for them. Some great fissure in his
nature had long needed thus to be filled. He sent for books about the
great composers; descriptions of the classics; how the themes were
developed through different instruments. Then he wanted the history of
all music; and for weeks his receptivity never faltered. No neophyte
ever brought a purer devotion to the masters. His first loves--the
_Andante in F_, the three movements of the _Kreutzer Sonata_, a prayer
from _Otello_, the _Twelfth_ _Rhapsody,_ the _Swan Song_ and the
_Evening Star_, and finally _Isolde's Triumph over Death_--these were
ascendings, indeed--to the point of wings.