And bear from hate the palm away.”
After exacting a promise that we would accompany their parents on their next monthly visit, we were permitted to depart, and, as the temple gates closed, held in review, with thoughtful silence, the scenes of the day, feeling within us that they were the index of future happiness for our race. Our thoughtful revery was broken by Lindenhoff, the corps’ genealogical curator of sound, who expostulated: “It is strange that the Heracleans still continue to drone the old pæan cadences practiced by the Greeks four thousand years ago, after hearing the Manatitlan operatists; for they are really a wonderful people, and superior musicians, notwithstanding their lack of power for the expression of the deeper emotions of rage, love, and revenge, which are in reality the vitality and soul of our great master’s compositions. They show but little versatility in fugue movement, which expresses the gliding power of musical intelligence; this certainly discovers a material lack of appreciation, however accomplished they may be in other respects. In fact, the Manatitlans would be esteemed as superior vocalists the world over, if they could register a little more volume to their voices. I would much rather undergo one of Mr. Welson’s practical jokes than listen again to the droning of the Heracleans, for their execution was perfectly shocking, and they have far less capacity in the lower scale than the bumble-bee.”
The music taster’s criticism provoked a hearty laugh, but the padre, with warmth, exclaimed: “Upon my soul, for the life of me, I can’t see any cause for fault finding with sound, when the words harmonized so well with one’s feelings of grateful sympathy. A good heartfelt invocation from such voices, which were as beautiful as their faces, should not be questioned by our coarse natures! Why, man alive, if I had had the voice of a nightingale, it would have choked with kindly emotions from the harmony of their affectionate solicitations in our behalf! Faugh, man, your opera tral-la-la yells are as empty as the screechings of cockatoos and the croakings of frogs in comparison! The chord of sympathy they touched is beyond the reach of your Norma quirketizations.”
All joined in hearty commendation of the padre’s strictures on the hypercritical curator, Mr. Welson reminding him that the Maniculan choristers would have failed to impress his sensitive ears with their excellence without the magnifying aid of the tympanum. “In full chorus, to the unassisted ear, their music would have sounded monotonous, hardly reaching in volume the lisping chirrupings of an infantile cricket, heard from its home in a distant cranny. As with your registrations of impressions derived from its voice, the Heracleans would find Manatitlan instruction wanting in volume for successful imitation. But,” he added, as Correliana overtook them, “here is the offending composer; we will now hear what she has to say in extenuation for neglect of opportunity for improvement in the cultivation of fugue flights above the reach of harmony.”
Correliana, observing the quizzical expression of mirth that accompanied this appeal, inquired the cause. In answer, Mr. Welson rehearsed the criticism of the curator, to which she blushingly replied: “You will, I hope, consider in our behalf, when I acknowledge the justness of your criticism, that before your arrival we were constantly harrassed with troubles which required the active employment of our people’s thoughts in the devisement of expedients for preservation. These kept us occupied with the full enlistment of our sympathies, so that we could only exercise our musical inclinations in the transmitted current of our original songs of thanksgiving. But in our greatest distress we longed for a harmonized extension of capacity, that you have supplied with adjuvantic aids, from which, in time, we hope that we may be able to render you satisfaction, with the evidences of industrious application.”
The curator of sound was too much abashed for an apologetic reply; and the Dosch requested Mr. Welson to say, that for their evening’s entertainment he would relate the circumstances that placed the “dulcetina” in the hands of Captain Greenwood for disposal.
CHAPTER XXVII.
After the evening song of salutation, on the day following the members of the corps’ visit to the school of the “ninyetas” they accepted the prætor’s invitation to join with his family in listening to the recital of the Dosch, which we transcribe.
During the ravages of the “coast” and yellow fever in Rio Janeiro in the year 18—, it made sad havoc among our provincial offshoots of Brazilian parentage, owing to a lack of means for provisionary precautions, so that I felt it a special duty and privilege devolving upon me to give my personal supervision for its arrest. The joint efforts of our Manatitlan corps of censors and nurses soon succeeded in rescuing our adherents from the deadly influence of the pestilence, affording us leisure to render succoring advice to the good of the Giga race. Among the foreigners, one had attracted my particular attention from the fact that he studiously avoided companionship with others, beyond the enforced necessities required for business relations. This, together with other singularities pertaining to his deportment, attracted a desire for an auramental investigation of the cause of his non-alliance with the herd. My first discovery after entering into auricular communication with his thoughts was, that his preference for communion with himself arose from a natural repugnance for association with men in form, whose instincts were degraded below the bestial capacity of the lower orders of animality. This, I soon learned, had its origin from the sympathetic impression of the animus of goodness revealed in desire. While studying his characteristics, as a key for after-thought substitution, I found that the intrusion of an indelicate impression from his own instinctive propensities, or in word reflection from others, gave him acute pain. Or when from natural promptings, induced from a genial disposition, he had been influenced to listen to or relate a humorous story, strongly tinctured with the passionate rulings of instinctive induction, for days afterwards he would subject himself to remorseful reproof. These sensitive traits, indicating a desire for the attainment of instinctive purity, although rare in the associations of Giga men, are by no means singular or unrealistic with the conceptions of the thoughtful. But a lack of discrimination in society association, subject to the arbitrary rule of money, blunts the perceptions of intelligent refinement, under the impress of the selfish policy it imposes for the successful enlistment of patronage. Vulgarity impairs the powers of inclination for refined perception, in like manner and degree with the action of foul odors upon the sense of smell, which renders it obtuse for the delicate appreciation of a well selected bouquet.