The music carried all away as on the flood of time, showing them, on one
hand, sunshine and beauty and joy, and all the pride of life; and on the
other, darkness and cruelty, despair, and defiance, and death. It might
have been, on the one hand, the music with which Orpheus tamed the
beasts; and on the other, that which AEschylus arranged to accompany the
last act of his tragedy of "Prometheus Bound." There was, however, no
clear distinction between the joyous airs and the sombre: all were
wrought and mingled into an exciting and bewildering atmosphere of
melody, which thrilled the heart and maddened the brain. But as the
music continued, its joyous strains died out; the instrument cried aloud
in horror and pain, as if the vulture of Prometheus were tearing at its
vitals; darkness seemed to descend upon the room--a darkness alive with
the sighs and groans, the disillusions and tears, of lost souls. The men
sat transfixed with agony and dread, the women were caught in the wild
clutches of hysteria, and Courtney himself was as if possessed with a
frenzy: his features were rigid, his eyes dilated, and his hair rose and
clung in wavy locks, so that he seemed a very Gorgon's head.
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