It was a wonderful performance and a difficult piece, and yet the bow seemed
go glide across the strings so easily that it was as if any one could do it
who tried. Even the violin and the bow appeared to perform independently of
their master who guided them; it was as if soul and spirit had been breathed
into the instrument, so the audience forgot the performer in the beautiful sounds he produced.
Not so the poet; he remembered him, and named him, and wrote down his thoughts on the subject.
"How foolish it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their performance, and yet we
men often commit that folly. The poet, the artist, the man of science in his laboratory, the
general,--we all do it; and yet we are only the instruments which the Almighty uses; to Him alone
the honor is due. We have nothing of ourselves of which we should be proud."
Yes, this is what the poet wrote down. He wrote it in the form of a parable, and called it
"The Master and the Instruments."
"That is what you have got, madam," said the pen to the inkstand, when the two were alone again.
"Did you hear him read aloud what I had written down?"
"Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the inkstand. "That was a cut at you because of your
conceit. To think that you could not understand that you were being quizzed. I gave you a cut
from within me. Surely I must know my own satire."
"Ink-pitcher!" cried the pen.
"Writing-stick!" retorted the inkstand. And each of them felt satisfied that he had given a good
answer. It is pleasing to be convinced that you have settled a matter by your reply; it is
something to make you sleep well, and they both slept well upon it. But the poet did not sleep.
Thought rose up within him like the tones of the violin, falling like pearls, or rushing like the
strong wind through the forest. He understood his own heart in these thoughts; they were as a ray
from the mind of the great Master of all minds.
"To Him be all the honor."