pulses. Kindly read aloud steadily while I hold it. Stop reading when I
make a sign. I'll nod, so that the vibrations of my voice won't
interfere." And he handed a notebook to him with quotations entered
neatly in his own handwriting, selected evidently with a purpose, and all
dealing with sound, music, as organized sound, and names. Spinrobin read
aloud; the first quotation from Meredith he recognized, but the others,
and the last one, discussing names, were new to him:--

"But _listen in the thought_; so may there come
Conception of a newly-added chord,
Commanding space beyond where ear has home.

"Everything that the sun shines upon sings or can be made to sing, and
can be heard to sing. Gases, impalpable powders, and woolen stuffs, in
common with other non-conductors of sound, give forth notes of different
pitches when played upon by an intermittent beam of white light. Colored
stuffs will sing in lights of different colors, but refuse to sing in
others. The polarization of light being now accomplished, light and sound
are known to be alike. Flames have a modulated voice and can be made to
sing a definite melody. Wood, stone, metal, skins, fibers, membranes,
every rapidly vibrating substance, _all have in them the potentialities
of musical sound_.

"Radium receives its energy from, and responds to, radiations which
traverse all space--as piano strings respond to sounds in unison with
their notes. Space is all a-quiver with waves of radiant energy. We
vibrate in sympathy with a few strings here and there--with the tiny
X-rays, actinic rays, light waves, heat waves, and the huge
electromagnetic waves of Hertz and Marconi; but there are great spaces,
numberless radiations, to which we are stone deaf. Some day, a thousand