I can make no pretense of understanding it; although Edmund declared
that, in substance, it was no more wonderful than a telephone. The
machine consisted of a little metal box. (He made three of them, and I
have mine yet, but it will not work on the earth, and it lies on my table
as I write, serving for the most wonderful paper weight that a man ever
possessed.) When this box was pressed against the ear in front of one of
the revolving disks that threw out blending colors, or in the presence of
a "singing" bird, the most divine harmonies seemed to awake _in the
brain_. I cannot make the slightest approach to a description of the
marvelous phenomenon. One felt his whole being infused with ecstatic
joy. It was the very soul of music itself, celestial, ineffable! The
wonder-box also enabled us to catch many sounds peculiar to the
atmosphere of Venus, formed of vibrations, as Edmund had explained, that
lie outside our gamut. But to these, apart from the music, I could never
listen. They were _too_ abnormal, filling one with inexplicable terror,
as if he had been snatched out of nature and compelled to listen to the
sounds of a preternatural world.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300