Now that his Monstership’s favorite food is no longer a matter of controversy to scientists and concern to the tenderfoot, we may reasonably hope that the interesting but hitherto misunderstood and calumniated reptile may be domesticated among us; for there is no longer a doubt of our ability to support him in the style to which he is accustomed, nourishing him to a proper growth and suitable flavor for the table.
In the gastronomical curriculum of the southern Red Man the Gila Monster has always held an honorable place when well roasted by exposure to the climate of his choice; and that aboriginal trencherman’s dietetic practices have frequently pointed the way to reform at the tables of the Paleface, a notable instance being his advocacy of the potato and the tobacco leaf, in the consumption of which he had long been happy before he discovered Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh. In the spud and the quid we have, doubtless, his best benefactions to Caucasian gastronomy; but if the seed of his example with regard to the Gila Monster do not fall upon the stony soil of a reasonless conservatism the minor pleasures of existence may be augmented by an addition distinctly precious, and the female gull be accepted and venerated as a philanthropist of the deepest dye.
By knowledge not only of the gratifying fact that the Monster eats gulls’ eggs, but of the at least interesting one that he does not eat the Eastern tourist, we attain to something like an understanding of his disposition, which is seen to be peaceable and humane. It is therefore probable that he is no more venomous when he bites than poisonous when bitten. The current stories attesting the noxiousness of his tooth have their origin, perhaps, in a strong sense of his destitution of beauty; for it must be frankly confessed that the impulchritude of his expression and general make-up is disquieting to the last degree. But, for that matter, so is that of the toad—not only the horned toad, which is known to be harmless, but the common hop-toad of the garden, whose bite is believed by some to be actually wholesome. Shakspeare was of a different conviction, but Shakspeare was not very strong in zoology, nor was he over-conscientious in verification of all the statements that he put into the mouths of his characters—a circumstance which seems to have been overlooked by those who are most addicted to quoting him.
Science having done so much for the Gila Monster and, in a sense, made him its own, will be expected by the public to carry the good work forward by settling, once for all, the vexed question of his brotherhood to the rattlesnake and the woman scorned. Is he really venomous? With a view to determining the point it is to be hoped that some unselfish investigator may permit himself to be bitten by the accused; and I think a very proper person to make the experiment is Dr. Theodore Roosevelt, the illustrious zoölogist who wrote the monograph on the invertebracy of the spineless cactus.
MUSIC
LET him to whom, as to me, nature has denied “an ear for music,” or circumstance an opportunity for its education, take heart and comfort: he has escaped a masterful temptation to commit nonsense in the first degree. Doubtless there are music makers and music lovers who can write and speak of the art with a decent regard to the demands of common sense, but doubtless they don’t; their history is a record of ignored opportunities. As to the others—the chaps who push in between our hearing and our understanding—they possibly “play by note,” but they write “by ear.” They say whatever sounds well to themselves, and there they leave it. Theirs is the art of sound and they expound its principles with due observance of its results: in speaking of it they are satisfied to make a pleasant noise. The louder the noise of their exposition, the more glorious the art which it expounds. As members of mystic brotherhoods are bound by oath not to divulge the solemn secrets which they do not possess; as the married have a tacit undertaking to wreathe their chains with flowers, smile away their wounds, and exhibit as becoming ornaments the handles of the daggers rusting in their hearts; as priesthoods plate with gold their empty shrines; as the dead swear in stone and brass that they were virtuous and great—so the musical are in conspiracy to magnify and exalt their art. It is a pretty art: it is rich in elements of joy, purveying to the sense a refined and keen delight. But it is not what they say it is. It is not what the uninitiated believe it. What is?
I am led to these reflections—provoked were the better word—by reading one Krehbiel. “Wagner,” Mr. Krehbiel explains, “strove to express artistic truths, not to tickle the ear, and therefore his work will stand, while Italian opera, which is founded on sensual enjoyment, must pass away.” A more amusing non sequitur it would be difficult for the most accomplished logician to construct. Because the city is founded on a rock it will topple down! I think I could name several sorts of sensual enjoyment which give promise of enduring as long as the senses. Among them I should give a high place to whatever kind of music the sense of hearing most enjoys. If posterity is going to be such an infinite fool as to stop its ears to sounds which please them, I thank Heaven that I live in antiquity.
The enjoyment of music is a purely sensual enjoyment. It “tickles the ear,” and it does nothing else. The ear being skilfully tickled after the fashion which the composer and the executant understand, emotion ensues; but not thought, save by association—by memory. Music does not touch the springs of the intellect. It never generated a process of reasoning, nor expressed a truth, “artistic” or other, which could be formulated in a definitive proposition. It has no intellectual character whatever. I have heard this disputed scores of times, but never by one who had himself much intellect. And, in truth, musicians, if I must say it, are not commonly distinguished above their fellows by mental capacity. The greater their gift, the less they know; and when you find a tremendously skilful and enthusiastic executant you will have as nearly sensual an animal as you care to catch.
To those having knowledge of the essential meaning of music, its original place among the influences that wrought their results upon primitive man, this will seem natural and sequent. Music was originally vocal; before men became wise enough and deft enough to make instruments they merely sang, as the birds do now, and certain animals—the latter pretty badly, it must be confessed. But why did the primitive man and woman sing? To commend themselves in the matter of love, as the birds do, and the beasts. Abundant vestiges of this practice survive among us. The young woman who bangs her piano and her hair has a single motive in the double habit. She is hardly conscious of it; she has inherited it along with the desire to brandish her eyes, and otherwise manslay. Consider, my tuneless youth, how slender is your chance in rivalry with the fellow who can sing. He will “knock you out” with a bar of music better than a Chinese highbinder could with a bar of iron. It did not occur to our good arboreal ancestor (him of the prehensile tail, aswing upon his branch) to address his wood-notes wild to a mixed audience for gate-money; he sought to charm a single pair of ears, and those more hairy than critical. Later, as the race went on humaning, there grew complexity of sentiment and varying emotional needs, for the gratification whereof song took on a matching complexity and variance. There were war songs, and death songs, and hunting songs, harvest songs and songs of adoration. Wood and metal were taught to perform acceptably.