tant a social event in our national annals | in the practice of bicycling will be as pow

as the games of Greece were in even the most flourishing period of her artistic civilization, yet there is no doubt that it would be difficult to overestimate the effect it may have in elevating and improving our physical culture, and that it would do much to correct the too low standard of success in life which is inevitable from an exaggerated devotion to merely material aims.

Though heretofore it has been generally considered by the public that the bicycle was rather a toy for the entertainment of the exceptionally eccentric few, yet gradually the extension of its use has shown that it is most admirably adapted also for business purposes. The village doctor, for example, has already, in numerous cases, found it to be the safest, easiest, and most convenient means for visiting his daily round of patients. stands always ready, and, furnished with a saddle-bag, he can promptly arrive wherever he may be called, amply provided with all the appliances he needs for an emergency. In England it is largely used by clergymen for making their rounds of pastoral visits; while the numerous class of commercial travellers have found it a most useful appliance in the dispatch of their business.

erful in effecting the improvement of the roads all over the country, strengthening the public opinion that they are designed more for the convenience and the pleasure of human beings than for horses, as the Central Park itself has been in stimulating the public appreciation of pleasuregrounds and rational open-air recreation throughout all the chief cities of the country.

The wheelman being generally a man of enterprise, as he shows by the fact of becoming a bicycler, he is not a person to whom routine forms an impassable barrier; and therefore the bicyclers collectively form inevitably a body of persons to whom the public can legitimately look with confidence, for the future, as men ready to examine the claims for consideration of the new, while not contemptuIt ously disregarding the old; that is, a class who, infused with the best spirit of the times, can naturally be counted upon to make themselves felt as a power in the future, to be counted upon the side of the right in the work before us for the further development of the possibilities of life. Possibly in the next century, in more senses than one, the historian may indicate by the term, the bicycle era, the times we are now living in, as we, in our retrospect, speak of the stone age, or of the era of steam.

There are already over one hundred clubs who have joined the League, and organized as their members are, dressed in uniform, and regularly drilled to perform their evolutions at the sound of the bugle when out on parade, or engaged in making a tour along some winding country road, the attractive spectacle they present may be estimated by the individual attention they excite.

When the Central Park was first laid out, the plan of providing for equestrians their own system of roads, devoted only to their use, was considered a questionable innovation. No one would, however, to-day question the unmixed benefit which its introduction has been to every one, or the stimulus it has given to the practice of horseback-riding in New York. It may, perhaps, be premature to suggest that the furnishing of similar accommodations to the bicyclers would be only a continuance of the spirit of consideration for the public which the administration of the Park has generally displayed.

The influence of an increasing interest

"THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.” THE

66

HE music of the spheres" is a wellknown phrase, derived by the Greeks from the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and since the Renaissance has been in constant use, although its signification is extremely vague.

The mathematical musician Pythagoras maintained that the sun was the true centre around which the earth and the other planets revolved; but this belief, being at that period far in advance of the opinions of the ancient Greek astronomers, found very few supporters. This great philosopher and his musical followers, called Canonici, labored to establish the art of music on a scientific basis; while the æsthetic musicians, with Aristotle at their head, persistently held that the ear, and not the ratio of vibrations or the harmonic canon, should be made the sole judge of right or wrong in music.

The point to be noted here is that the

practical musicians were compelled to ac- | And, further, they are similarly guarded knowledge the truth of the Pythagorean from interfering with and from exercislaws, and to accept the analogy he made ing undue influence over one another. between the solar system and the tonal For the planets obey laws of time and system. They perceived the dependence place; their distances are precisely anof the tones of the musical scale upon one alogous to the distances between the muprincipal tone (which we ourselves now sical parts which are technically termfully recognize, and call the key-note), and ed intervals, and their speeds are similar regarded this dependence as similar to to the musically regulated rhythmic mothat of the planets upon the sun. For tions. By the due observance of such Aristotle says: "When, after having tuned laws the stability of the whole is preall the strings of the lyre, one changes the served as in a kind of moving equilibrimiddle string" (which was the key-note), um. With respect to ordinary lyric mu"and then uses the instrument, why do sic, consisting of a melody with a simple they all sound wrongly tuned, not only accompaniment of chords, the comparison when one strikes that middle tone, but all is not so close. For here the bass and through the melody; while if, instead of chords merely form a sort of base and this string, one changes any other, the pedestal, on which the melody or theme difference is noticed when that string, and may be more attractively displayed, and that string only, is used, the whole of the as a figure that is to be the sole or prinmelody not being put out of tune? Does cipal object of attention. Such music not this take place with good reason, for more resembles terrestrial architecture, the best melodies use the middle string resting on a stable foundation, or, as we very often, and no other tone in equal de- commonly say and imagine, terra firma, gree?" He then compares the middle tone forgetting habitually the wild balloon, with conjunctions in grammar, or bind- careering in space, on which we build so ing-words, suggesting that the middle confidently. string binds together the sense and effect of the whole melody. In another passage he partly answers the question by saying: "Is it because good tune is enjoined for all the strings-for all a certain relation to the middle tone-and by this middle tone the place of all is determined?" And again: "When this foundation of right tuning is taken away, no proper order is perceived."

It is singular that this æsthetic philosopher should thus describe so well the tonic or key-note, making it an axis from which all the other notes are calculated, and that the mathematician should compare this note (on the middle string, or Mese) with the sun, and the others to the planets.

Analogies equally interesting may be found in our modern music, although this, when compared with that of the Greeks, is a new art. For take a chorus in four or eight real parts, similar to those in Handel's oratorios or Bach's motets. Here, instead of one melody, several melodies are heard simultaneously. They all move freely. Even the bass part is not an immovable foundation supporting a superstructure, but is itself equally active in progression. In this respect the melodies have their appointed courses as the planets have their respective orbits.

Contrapuntal music, therefore, more closely resembles celestial architecture, in which all would become chaotic unless the required distances (intervals) and speeds (time) were observed, and in which all the motions are apparently free and independent, and yet they are really subject to most rigid laws. The various parts mutually act and react upon each other, so that their combination forms one complex, organic, or complete whole, from which nothing can be taken and to which nothing can be added without endangering the stability of the whole.

No such change could be satisfactorily made except by one competent to project a similar work. That is to say, no musician could add or remove a part from a fugue or canon without injuring the music, unless he were so skilled a contrapuntist as to be able to construct a fugue or canon with an equal number of parts, and in conformity with the strict laws observed in such productions.

Having considered planetary motions. as analogous to united melodies, it will be found interesting to point to a certain similitude existing between the relative distances of the planets and those of musical tones in a chord.

Vocal quartettes are usually based upon the four principal divisions of human

voices, those of women forming one cou- | veniently the planetary distances with the ple (soprano, contralto), and those of men intervals of a vocal quartette, take the lowanother pair (tenor, bass), which differ est note on the viola (or octave above the not only in characteristics, but in pitch. lowest note of the 'cello, or the note correThey naturally move at a certain dis- sponding with an organ pipe four feet in tance from each other in the tonal re- length), or "C," then above this the neargion, and therefore the notes that are est "B flat," above this again the nearest sung to form a chord are very rarely so "E," and then above this the nearest "C," close together that they may be played and four sounds will be obtained, whose with one hand upon a piano-forte. They vibrations (at scientific pitch) are respectare more widely extended. The soprano ively 128, 224, 320, 512, and therefore in the moves freely upward, and bass descends same ratio as the first four planets with reto a certain depth, that the two inner gard to distance from each other. For they parts may have so free and open a space stand, or rather continue to move, in the that their melodic motions may not be ratio of 4: 7: 10: 16. This same beautiful impeded, cramped, or confined. There- chord may be raised on any given note, fore they make "dispersed harmony," and thus the actual speed of the vibrawhich is more beautiful than "close har- tions will be altered, although their relamony," even in instrumental music. tive proportions will remain unchanged.

The asteroids, marked 28, agree with a "B flat," two octaves higher than the one mentioned above.

Jupiter, marked 52, corresponds with a "G sharp" in altissimo.

Saturn, known to be really about 95, adds a higher "G natural."

Uranus, 192, represents a "G natural" one octave higher still; and Neptune, known to be about 300, completes the series with a still higher "D."

The additional sounds thus gained (with the exception of the "G sharp") are those that musicians commonly employ in this combination, although they are frequently omitted.

To be in exact correspondence with music (when this is rendered with mathematical or ideal purity of intonation), the numbers should be 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 48, 96, 192, 288.

For these may be divided repeatedly by 2 until they form the series 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, which is the arithmetical expression of this chord, the "chord of the major ninth," which musicians express in their algebraical notation by the letters C, E, G, B flat, D.

These distances are not exactly correct, but only nearly so. They vary continuously. The earth, for instance, is nearer the sun in winter than in summer. Similarly in music the intervals are not always rendered with exactness, but are varied somewhat in obedience to certain This chord is produced when any sinoccult influences, or are designedly alter-gle sound is analyzed, and is analogous to ed. It may be noted in passing that, as the series of colors seen in the rainbow, or for practical purposes of life, we do not whenever a ray of white light is similarly use solar, or sidereal, or apparent time, analyzed. It is equally a natural prodbut a mean time, so, also, for the practi- uct. This fact is stated here that it may cal purposes of music, we similarly em- not be thought that this chord was chosen ploy, as in the tuning of piano-fortes, a from many employed by musicians bemean temperament, or 'equal tempera- cause its proportions suited the purpose in ment," analogous to the " equation of view. It is the normal combination from which all other harmonies are formed by

time."

To proceed. In order to compare con- modification.

A LAODICEAN.

BOOK THE THIRD.-DE STANCY.

where he was to be seen bending attentively over it, arranging the lights and di

[AVILL overheard the words, and hast-recting Dare with the instruments. On

come, the letter saying that, as she had desired, his was the design that pleased her, was still the only thing to do. The (to Somerset) unusual accident that the committee of architects should have pronounced the designs absolutely equal in point of merit, and thus have caused the final choice to revert, after all, to Paula, had been a joyous thing to him when he first heard of it, full of confidence in her favor. But the fact of her having again | become the arbitrator, though it had made acceptance of his plans all the more probable, made refusal of them, should it happen, all the more crushing. He could have conceived himself favored by Paula as her lover, even had the committee decided in favor of Havill as her architect. But not to be chosen as architect now was to be rejected in both kinds.

It was the Sunday following the funeral of Mrs. Havill, news of whose death had been so unexpectedly brought to her husband at the moment of his exit from Stancy Castle. The minister, as was his custom, improved the occasion by a couple of sermons on the uncertainty of life. One was preached in the morning in the old chapel of Markton; the second at evening service in the little rural chapel near Stancy Castle, built by Paula's father, which bore to the first somewhat the relation of an episcopal chapel of ease to the mother church.

haps a little too freely employed in exciting the "Wertherism of the uncultivated," had in it genuine power. He was a master of that oratory which no limitation of knowledge can repress, and which no training can impart. The neighboring rector could eclipse Woodwell's scholarship, and the freethinker at the corner shop in Markton could demolish his logic; but the Baptist could do in five minutes what neither of these had done in a lifetime: he could move some of the hardest of men to tears.

Thus it happened that when the sermon was fairly under way, Havill began to feel himself in a trying position. It was not that he had bestowed much affection upon his deceased wife, irreproachable woman as she had been; but the suddenness of her death had shaken his nerves, and Mr. Woodwell's address on the uncertainty of life involved considerations of conduct on earth that bore with singular directness upon Havill's unprincipled manoeuvre for victory in the castle competition. He wished he had not been so inadvertent as to take his customary chair in the chapel. People who saw Havill's agitation did not know that it was most largely owing to his sense of the fraud which had been practiced on the unoffending Somerset ; and when, unable longer to endure the torture of Woodwell's words, he rose from his place and went into the chapel vestry, the preacher little thought that remorse for a contemptibly unfair act, rather than grief for a dead wife, was the cause of the architect's withdrawal.

To

When Havill got into the open air, his morbid excitement calmed down, but a sickening self-abhorrence for the proceeding instigated by Dare did not abate. appropriate another man's design was no more nor less than to embezzle his money or steal his goods. The intense reaction from his conduct of the past two or three months did not leave him when he reach

The unscreened lights blazed through the plate - glass windows of the smaller building, and outshone the steely stars of the early night, just as they had done when Somerset was attracted by their glare four months before. The fervid minister's rhetoric equalled its force on that more romantic occasion; but Paula was not there. She was not a frequent attendant now at her father's votive building. The mysterious tank, with its dark waters that had so terrified her at the last moment, was boarded over: a table stood on its centre, with an opened his own house, and observed where the quarto Bible upon it; behind which Havill, in a new suit of black, sat in a large chair. Havill held the office of deacon; and he had mechanically taken the deacon's seat as usual to-night, in the face of the congregation, and under the nose of Mr. Woodwell.

Mr. Woodwell was always glad of an opportunity. He was gifted with a burning natural eloquence, which, though per

handbills of the countermanded sale had been torn down, as the result of the payment made in advance by Paula of money which should really have been Somerset's.

The mood went on intensifying when he was in bed. He lay awake till the clock reached those still, small, ghastly hours when the vital fires burn at their lowest in the human frame, and death