On, to the conflict on!
THE MISERIES OF MUSIC.
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BY CALEB CROTCHET.
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I am the victim of a fine ear. Talk of the miseries of the halt, the lame and the blind! Their condition is that of celestial beatitude as compared with mine; and as for the deaf and dumb, they must be the happiest mortals alive. They can neither inflict nor suffer the miseries of sound. Blessing and blessed, how shall I contrive to gain admission to their happy brotherhood?
Music has been the bane of my existence. My ear—the asinine organ that has since so extravagantly developed itself—was early noticed by a maiden aunt, and my first recollection is of her look of bland satisfaction as, with a shrill, little, piping, three-year-old voice, I edified an audience of spinsters, around a quilting-frame, with the strains of “Bonnie Doon.” Heaven pardon my poor old aunt for the wickedness of thus early encouraging a passion that has led to so many sins of temper, and, perhaps, to so many unuttered, but deep felt outrages upon her memory!
I shall not go over the years of probation that elapsed from these first exhibitions of infantile vocalization, to the period of my perfect development as a young gentleman of acknowledged taste and talent, and my introduction, as a full-fledged connoisseur into the fashionable circles of ——.