A treatise on the kaleidoscope / By David Brewster.

  • Brewster, David, 1781-1868.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the kaleidoscope / By David Brewster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    148/208 (page 130)
    displaying the powers of some of the preceding in- struments ; and the effects of the rest can only be exhibited after much previous preparation. From these causes, but principally from a want of variety in their exhibitions, they have constantly failed to excite, in ordinary minds, that intense and con- tinued interest which might have been expected from the ingenuity of their construction and the splendour of their effects. The pleasure which is derived from the use of musical instruments is of a different kind, and far more intense in its effects, and more general in its influence than that which is obtained from any of the preceding instruments. There are, indeed, few minds that are not alive to the soothing and exhilarating influence of musical sounds, or . that do not associate them with the dearest and most tender sympathies of our nature. But the ear is not the only avenue to the heart; and though sor- row and distress are represented by notes of a deep and solemn character, and happiness and gaiety by more light and playful tones, the same kind of feelings may also be excited by the exhibition of dark and gloomy colours, and by the display oi bright and aerial tints. The association, indeed, is not so powerful in the one case as in the other, for we have been taught from our infancy, in con- sequence of the connection of music and poetry, to associate particular sentiments with particular sounds; but there can be no doubt that the asso- ciation of colour is naturally as powerful as that of