"
He turned over all her loose music from beginning to end. Then without
a word seated himself at the grand piano.
Whether he extemporized or played from memory, I, as ignorant of music
as of all other accomplishments, could not tell, but even to stupid
me, what he did play spoke. I assure my readers that I hardly know a
term in the whole musical vocabulary; and yet I am tempted to try to
describe what this music was like.
In the beginning, I heard nothing but a slow sameness, of which I was
soon weary. There was nothing like an air of any kind in it. It seemed
as if only his fingers were playing, and his mind had nothing to do
with it. It oppressed me with a sense of the common-place, which, of
all things, I hate. At length, into the midst of it, came a few notes,
like the first chirp of a sleepy bird trying to sing; only the attempt
was half a wail, which died away, and came again. Over and over again
came these few sad notes, increasing in number, fainting, despairing,
and reviving again; till at last, with a fluttering of agonized wings,
as of a soul struggling up out of the purgatorial smoke, the music-
bird sprang aloft, and broke into a wild but unsure jubilation. Then,
as if in the exuberance of its rejoicing it had broken some law of the
kingdom of harmony, it sank, plumb-down, into the purifying fires
again; where the old wailing, and the old struggle began, but with
increased vehemence and aspiration.
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