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Show MUSIC. The world has no gratitude; no memory for aught but disagreeables. And yet I know not why one should speak of her badly, making her, as it were, the scapegoat of individuals - so meek and unrevengeful as she is too. I suppose the cause is cowardice; a collective hatred, too, has all the relish without the bitter aftertaste of a personal animosity. But to continue: The world hates all musicians because they make a noise. She classes them with German bands, barrel organs, paperboys, old clothes men, the irresponsible sparrow, the maternal quack of the park haunting duck, and the town bred chanticleer, who, by crowing throughout the night, forfeits his only claim to respect. Musicians violate the peace of the domestic hearth, their art is an obtrusive one. The poet who recites his verses and tears his hair is not, through his ravings equal those of the Common Sibyl, as a rule, audible through that razor like partition which, as in Swedonborg's other world, separates many a heaven and hell, but the abortive efforts of the tyro musician cannot be restrained by the thickest and hardest of walls. Shut the window and door, the detestable flat notes drift down the chimney with perplexing perseverance. Do what you will short of stopping your ears with wax, you cannot escape those nosirenish sounds. The only resource left to you is to fly to your piano - I don't ask if you have one - has a prizefighter fists? Did Fitzgerald possess a pair of pistols? - to fly to your piano and revenge yourself on your unoffending neighbor on the other side. Thus the musician is not only the direct means of destroying other people's comfort, but indirectly the author of multitudinous evils and consequently an object of universal execration. Would not the composer of "Home Sweet Home," whoever he may be, turn in his grave if he knew that his innocent composition was daily torturing the most Christian souls into mingled thoughts of hatred and revenge? The Persians have doubtless lived to curse the king who, in mistaken kindness, when he saw his subjects dancing without music, introduced twelve thousand musicians and singers from abroad. - Cornhill Magazine. |