It takes most of the poetry out of Faust's first words with Marguerite, to have that short interview interrupted by a line of old, weary women shouting, "Let us whirl in the waltz o'er the mount and the plain!" Or when Scotch Lucy appears in a smart tea-gown and is good enough to perform difficult exercises before a half-circle of Italian gentlemen in pantalets and ladies in court costumes, does she give any one the illusion of an abandoned wife dying of a broken heart alone in the Highlands? Broken heart
, indeed! It's much more likely she'll die of a ruptured blood-vessel!
Philistines in matters musical, like myself, unfortunate mortals whom the sweetest sounds fail to enthrall when connected with no memory or idea, or when prolonged beyond a limited period, must approach the third group with hesitation and awe. That they are sincere, is evident. The rapt expressions of their faces, and their patience, bear testimony to this fact. For a long time I asked myself, "Where have I seen that intense, absorbed attitude before?" Suddenly one evening another scene rose in my memory.
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