The organ-grinder received any quantity of _baiocchi_, which so encouraged him that he tried another--"Old Virginny."
"That's better yet," said the Senator. "But how on airth did this man manage to get hold of these tunes?"
Then came others. They were all American: "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Ely," "Suwannee Ribber," "Jordan," "Dan Tucker," "Jim Crow."
The Senator was certainly most demonstrative, but all the others were equally affected.
Those native airs; the dashing, the reckless, the roaringly-humorous, the obstreperously jolly--they show one part of the many-sided American character.
Not yet has justice been done to the nigger song. It is not a nigger song. It is an American melody. Leaving out those which have been stolen from Italian Operas, how many there are which are truly American in their extravagance, their broad humor, their glorious and uproarious jollity! The words are trash. The melodies are every thing.
These melodies touched the hearts of the listeners. American life rose before them as they listened.--American life--free, boundless, exuberant, broadly-developing, self-asserting, gaining its characteristics from the boundless extent of its home--a continental life of limitless variety. As mournful as the Scotch; as reckless as the Irish; as solemnly patriotic as the English.
"Listen!" cried the Senator, in wild excitement.
It was "Hail Columbia."
"The Pincian Hill," said the Senator, with deep solemnity, "is glorified from this time forth and for evermore. It has gained a new charm. The Voice of Freedom hath made itself heard!"