"The organist practises late," he said aloud, as though speaking to
some invisible companion, and then was silent, listening. Round him
and above him surged the flood of rich and dulcet harmony,--the
sunset light through the blue and red stained-glass windows grew
paler and paler--the towering arches which sprang, as it were, from
slender stem-like side-columns up to full-flowering boughs of Gothic
ornamentation, crossing and re-crossing above the great High Altar,
melted into a black dimness,--and then--all at once, without any
apparent cause, a strange, vague suggestion of something
supernatural and unseen began suddenly to oppress the mind of the
venerable prelate with a curious sense of mingled awe and fear.
Trembling a little, he knew not why, he softly drew a chair from one
of the shadowy corners, where all such seats were piled away out of
sight so that they might not disfigure the broad and open beauty of
the nave, and, sitting down, he covered his eyes with one hand and
strove to rouse himself from the odd, half-fainting sensation which
possessed him. How glorious now was the music that poured like a
torrent from the hidden organ-loft! How full of searching and
potential proclamation!--the proclamation of an eternal, unguessed
mystery, for which no merely human speech might ever find fit
utterance! Some divine declaration of God's absolute omnipresence,--
or of Heaven's sure nearness,--touched the heart of Felix Bonpre, as
he sat like an enchanted dreamer among the tender interweavings of
solemn and soothing sound;--carried out of himself and beyond his
own existence, he could neither pray nor think, till, all at once,
upon the peaceful and devout silence of his soul, some very old,
very familiar words struck sharply as though they were quite new,--
as though they were invested suddenly with strange and startling
significance--