There it was '_Double open wood 32 ft._' And just as his fingers slid on to the last chord, 'Now,' he said.
"Ah! that was it; the great wooden pipe close to my ear began to blow and quiver; and hark! not sound, but sensation--the great rapturous stir of the air; a drowsy thunder in the roof of nave and choir; the grim saints stirred and rattled ill their leaded casements, while the melodious roar died away as softly as it had begun, sinking to silence with many a murmurous pulsation, many a throb of sighing sound." Organ-playing, organ music, was the one subject on which I have heard him wax enthusiastic.

His talk and his letters always become rhetorical when he deals with music; his musical metaphors are always carefully worked out; he compares a man of settled purpose, in whose life the "motive was very apparent," to "the great lazy horns, that you can always hear in the orchestra pouring out their notes hollow and sweet, however loud the violins shiver or the trumpets cry." He often went up to London to hear music.

The St.James's Hall Concerts were his especial delight.

I find later a description of the effect produced on him by Wagner.
"I have just come back from the Albert Hall, from hearing the 'Meistersanger,' Wagner himself conducting.

I may safely say I think that I never experienced such absolute artistic rapture before as at certain parts of this; for instance, in the overture, at one place where the strings suddenly cease and there comes a peculiar chromatic waft of wind instruments, like a ghostly voice rushing across.