This was an unlucky remark, and the colonel stepped a little out of his natural character when he risqued it: had he kept clear of definitions, and said nothing about instinct, he might have escaped a lecture on the Harmonics, which now became unavoidable, and he heard himself addressed as follows—
You discern correctly, my good colonel, as to effect, not so as to cause. You say there is no logic, that applies to instinct; I say there is no instinct, that applies to rationality: the brute creation is submitted to it, and directed by it; man must not offer to degrade his virtues, or defend his vices, by a reference to instinct: the plea of impulse will not save the criminal; for there are no propensities, which reason may not conquer. From what you tell me I perceive that you understand as much of music as ninety-nine in a hundred, who affect to profess it, and more than many, who profess to teach it, forasmuch as you feel it: now as there can be no effect without a cause, depend upon it, there is a reason why you feel exactly in the manner you describe, and in no other, though to investigate that reason, and intelligibly describe it to you, cannot be done without a more intimate knowledge of the constituent properties and powers of music, than falls to many people’s lot to attain. To descant upon these at present would take up more time than either of us would perhaps find convenient to devote to it. I will postpone it to a better opportunity, when I flatter myself I shall be able to relate to you so many striking instances of the astonishing powers of harmony, as will set that sacred science in a stronger and a clearer light, than you may be as yet aware of. Believe me, it is one of the sublimest studies, that the human faculties can embrace. The systems, that have come down to us from the Greek and Roman harmonists, as well as all that has been written by the moderns on that subject, are above measure difficult, elaborate and recondite—
Then I shall never understand them, said the colonel, nor desire to have any thing to do with them.
Pardon me! resumed De Lancaster: If leisure now served, I could give you specimens of the pains I have taken in the way of illustration, not only with the learned treatise of Vincentio Galilei, a noble Spaniard, published in the year 1581, but also with the Satyricon of Martianus Capella, as edited and illustrated by the celebrated Grotius in his early years. Permit me to say that I could give you the scale, and mark out to you the distinct semitones of Quarlino, Giovanni Bardi, and Pierro Strozzi. This would be demonstration, that could not fail to edify, and at the same time I would adduce such evidence, as should prove to you that my ancestorial harp was the very prototype of that, which Epigonus of Ambracia was said to have played upon with forty strings, when he first taught the Sicyonian minstrels to lay aside the plectrum, and employ their fingers in the place of it: when Julius Pollux therefore gives this new-constructed harp the name of Epigonium in honour of Epigonus, it is a mere trick, after the custom of the Greeks, to arrogate all originality to their countrymen, and defraud my ancestor of his prior title to give name to his own invention. In like manner I can detect their plagiarism, when they ascribe the invention of the double-headed plectrum to Sappho, whilst I have models still in my possession, that prove it to have been the very identical plectrum in general use, when my ingenious ancestor struck out a better practice. I am therefore very naturally interested to prevent my ancestorial harp from being confounded with the seven-stringed lyre, ascribed by Homer to Mercury, of which the testudo formed the sounding-board; much less would I have it mistaken for that delineated by Hyginus with crooked arms, and least of all with the suspicious model in the museum of the Medici.
All this, my dear sir, said the colonel, I should be extremely delighted with, were I capable of understanding it; but alas! how should I, who was never accustomed to admire any thing above the crash of a regimental band, comprehend a single word of what you have been saying to me? That I am capable of preferring one tune before another is all I pretend to, but to assign any reason for that preference is what I do not pretend to.
Yet there is a reason, resumed De Lancaster, and that reason is not inscrutable to all, because not enquired into by you. That tones have power over the human feelings will not be disputed; but tones have different properties, and of course different operations: the one, entire, full and legitimate tone contains within itself a variety of divisional parts, by the expression and application of which various passions may be excited, and various effects produced. The full tone may be resolved into the half-tone, or hemitonium; the half-tone into the quarter-tone, or diesis; neither does its divisibility stop here, for the diesis may be again resolved, first, into its proper quarter-tone, or tetartemoria, which be pleased to observe, is also called enarmonios; secondly, into its third of a tone, or tritemoria, (which by the way is the true chromatique) and thirdly and lastly, into a tone, which involves a third part of a full tone and half a third, and this is called hemiolia—And now, my good friend, having given you some insight into the various combinations and resolutions of musical tones, according to the system of the Greek writers on the harmonics, (which, though briefly stated, cannot fail to be perfectly clear to your comprehension) I think I may trust you to discover the reason, why certain modulations and assortments of tones are pleasing to you, and others not. These are the elements of all harmony, and as you are now fully possessed of the definition of them, you cannot possibly find any difficulty in the application.
I am under no difficulty at all, cried the colonel, in finding out when I am pleased, and that being the only discovery I have any concern in, I will trouble you no further to explain to me why I am pleased, but take your word for having given me the true reason, and be content.
Here the lecture ended as many lectures do: the expounder was perfectly satisfied with the instruction he had imparted, and the disciple was entirely reconciled to remain in ignorance of what he did not wish to understand.
At this moment Cecilia opportunely entered the room, and the recollection of Sir Owen’s proposal instantly occuring to her father, he desired to have a little private talk with her, and Wilson on the hint withdrew.