bells, the tones of some of them being as if the bell were full of liquid
melody, and shed it through the air on being upturned. I had supposed,
in my lack of musical ear, that the bells of the Campanile were the
sweetest; but Mr. Powers says that there is a defect in their tone, and
that the bell of the Palazzo Vecchio is the most melodious he ever heard.
Then he spoke of his having been a manufacturer of organs, or, at least,
of reeds for organs, at one period of his life. I wonder what he has not
been! He told me of an invention of his in the musical line, a jewsharp
with two tongues; and by and by he produced it for my inspection. It was
carefully kept in a little wooden case, and was very neatly and
elaborately constructed, with screws to tighten it, and a silver
centre-piece between the two tongues. Evidently a great deal of thought
had been bestowed on this little harp; but Mr. Powers told me that it was
an utter failure, because the tongues were apt to interfere and jar with
one another, although the strain of music was very sweet and melodious--
as he proved, by playing on it a little--when everything went right. It
was a youthful production, and he said that its failure had been a great
disappointment to him at the time; whereupon I congratulated him that his
failures had been in small matters, and his successes in great ones.

We talked, furthermore, about instinct and reason, and whether the brute
creation have souls, and, if they have none, how justice is to be done
them for their sufferings here; and Mr. Powers came finally to the
conclusion that brutes suffer only in appearance, and that God enjoys for
them all that they seem to enjoy, and that man is the only intelligent
and sentient being. We reasoned high about other states of being; and I
suggested the possibility that there might be beings inhabiting this
earth, contemporaneously with us, and close beside us, but of whose
existence and whereabout we could have no perception, nor they of ours,
because we are endowed with different sets of senses; for certainly it