The Wanderer was of those who dread nothing save for the one dearly-beloved object, but who, when that fear is once roused by a real or an imaginary danger, can suffer in one short moment the agony which should be distributed through a whole lifetime.  The magnitude of his passion could lend to the least thought or presentiment connected with it the force of a fact and the overwhelming weight of a real calamity.

In order to feel any great or noble passion a man must have an imagination both great and sensitive in at least one direction.  The execution of a rare melody demands as a prime condition an instrument of wide compass and delicate construction, and one of even more rich and varied capabilities is needed to render those grand harmonies which are woven in the modulation of sonorous chords.  A skilful hand may draw a scale from wooden blocks set upon ropes of straw, but the great musician must hold the violin, or must feel the keys of the organ under his fingers and the responsive pedals at his feet, before he can expect to interpret fittingly the immortal thought of the composer.  The strings must vibrate in perfect tune, the priceless wood must be seasoned and penetrated with the melodies of years, and scores of years, the latent music must be already trembling to be free, before the hand that draws the bow can command the ears and hearts of those who hear.  So, too, love, the chief musician of this world, must find an instrument worthy of his touch before he can show all his power, and make heart and soul ring with the lofty strains of a sublime passion.  Not every one knows what love means; few indeed know all that love can mean.  There is no more equality among men than there is likeness between them, and no two are alike.  The many have little, the few have much.  To the many is given the faint perception of higher things, which is either the vestige, or the promise, of a nobler development, past or yet to come.  As through a veil they see the line of beauty which it is not theirs to trace; as in a dream they hear the succession of sweet tones which they can themselves never bring together, though their half-grown instinct feels a vague satisfaction in the sequence; as from another world, they listen to the poet’s song, wondering, admiring, but powerless over the great instrument of human speech, from whose 15,000 keys their touch can draw but the dull, tuneless prose of daily question and answer; as in a mirage of things unreal, they see the great deeds that are done in their time for love or hate, for race or country, for ambition and for vengeance, but though they see the result, and know the motive, the inward meaning and spirit of it all escapes them.  It is theirs to be, and existence is in itself their all.  To think, to create, to act, to feel can be only for the few.  To one is given the transcendent genius that turns the very stones along life’s road to precious gems of thought; whose gift it is to find speech in dumb things and eloquence in the ideal half