Antonio Ghislanzoni, an Italian journalist was possessed of a sort of humor that would be a credit to any nation. It is not far removed from the style of the early American jocularists.
Ghislanzoni was an opera singer, but, losing his voice, he quitted the stage, and founded a comic paper, L’Uomo di Pietra.
His paper on Musical Instruments is so entertaining we quote it all.
ON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
The Clarinet
This instrument consists of a severe cold in the head, contained in a tube of yellow wood.
The clarinet was not invented by the Conservatory, but by Fate.
A chiropodist may be produced by study and hard work; but the clarinet-player is born, not made.
The citizen predestined to the clarinet has an intelligence which is almost obtuse up to the age of eighteen—a period of incubation, when he begins to feel in his nose the first thrills of his fatal vocation.