“Loud and prolonged applause,” the Gazette stated, followed the announcement; for Mr. Stamford was the leading tenor of the Minster choir.
Mr. Barton, carrying with him his three encore songs—he had come fully prepared to meet the preposterous demands of an enthusiastic audience—left Broadminster by the night train. And up to this day I believe that he does not know by what diabolic trick on the part of some one he made such a fiasco. He has been heard to declare that no persuasion will ever induce him to sing again in Broadminster, and, so far as I can gather, there is no likelihood of any machinery being set in motion to cause him to break his vow.
I think that the claim which the musical fraternity of Broadminster advance respecting the moral tone of their performances, whether given under the patronage of the Church or not, can certainly be maintained. The Kreutzer Sonata has been placed on the Index Expurgatorius of the Concert Committee ever since Tolstoi wrote a foolish book pointing out whither that composition was likely to lead young people with a tendency toward voluptuousness; and when a lady of a sensitive nature but an open mind submitted to them a song which she had been advised to sing at a forthcoming concert, pointing out where in one line the writer of the words had, she thought, gone a little too far, they considered the matter with closed doors and all females excluded, and decided that her suspicions were but too well founded, and that the offensive line should be altered. This was done, and the honour of Broadminster was preserved intact.
The name of the song was, “It was a Dream,” and the line objected to was—
“We kiss'd beneath the moon's cold beam.”
The shock of this shameless confession was mitigated by the substitution of the word “met” for “kiss'd”—
“We met beneath the moon's cold beam—
It was a dream—it was a dream!”
“Nothing could be happier than the change,” said Lady Birnam. “It left so much to the imagination.”